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No entrance test for three-year, five-year law courses at PU this year
The decision to scrap the tests was earlier taken on August 11 and challenged by two law aspirants
In view of the pandemic, Panjab University has decided against conducting entrance exams for admission to the five-year integrated law course run by University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS), and the three-year bachelor of legislative law (LLB) course run by the department of laws, this year.
The renewed decision was taken by PU on Saturday. A recommendation to that effect was also made by a special panel of the university on Thursday.
Earlier, the decision to scrap the entrance exams was taken on August 11, but was challenged by two law aspirants, who argued that the premise to not hold the entrance was invalid when PU was conducting such exams for other courses. Class-12 marks as a sole criterion for determining the suitability of a candidate for admission to the course would neither be reasonable nor reliable, they had argued.
The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) had asked PU to reconsider its decision by September 15. However, PU again decided against holding the exam, which has resulted in the second round of litigation.
PU on Tuesday had sought three days from the high court to reconsider the decision again and upload its decision on the website.
No entrance tests this year
According to a compliance report uploaded on the varsity’s website on Saturday, the controller of examination said the special committee set up by the vice-chancellor had recommended that entrance examination for BA LLB/ BCom LLB (honors) five-year integrated course and LLB (three-year) will not be conducted for this academic session. The same stands approved by the Panjab University.
PU has already scrapped the entrance tests for all undergraduate, postgraduate, MPhil, PhD, honours graduate courses, management entrance test.
‘Exam not feasible’
“In view of the prevalent situation, it is not feasible to conduct the entrance examination for admissions to five-year and three-year law courses in the best interest of students and public at large,” stated the proceedings of the panel.
The panel also observed that as per UGC directions, if admissions are not completed by the end of October 2020, the university will be left with no option except to declare 2020-21 as zero academic year.
