LLM students allege discrepancies in admissions as students with lower scores bag seats

Less than a week after the University of Mumbai (MU) wrapped up the final round of admissions to Master of Law (LLM) course for the 2020-21 academic year, a group of students have raised objection to the manner in which seats were allotted

Less than a week after the University of Mumbai (MU) wrapped up the final round of admissions to Master of Law (LLM) course for the 2020-21 academic year, a group of students have raised objection to the manner in which seats were allotted. In a letter addressed to the MU vice-chancellor as well as the governor of the state, these students have pointed out discrepancies, showing how non-revealing of vacant seats left some with higher entrance exam scores losing a seat to those with lower scores.

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“The last spot admission round was announced in mid-May and applicants were asked to once again apply for a division as per the seat vacancy information shared by MU on their website. We applied accordingly, only to later find out that there were more vacant seats in other divisions, which we were not made aware of,” said an applicant. He added that due to this error on the part of the law department at MU, students with a lower score in common entrance test (CET) have bagged seats while those with higher scores have not.

On May 15, the university’s department of law issued a notice allowing candidates, who could not make it to the five merit lists, to apply afresh for the vacant seats through spot admission. On the same notice, the department announced that the sixth merit list would be the last one.

There are around 600 seats for LLM in six divisions — Constitutional and administrative law, business law, intellectual property and information technology law, human rights law, criminal law and criminal administration, and environmental and legal order.

Applicants, however, alleged that the university hid seat vacancy from all divisions before announcing the sixth and final merit list. “The seat vacancy list on the MU website showed only four vacant seats and students applied accordingly. However, once the sixth merit list was out it showed at least a dozen other students were allocated seats across divisions. How did these students find out about more vacant seats without MU officially announcing the same? The university is clearly keeping seats hidden from the common admission process,” said another student.

An official from MU told HT that as per law, reserved category seats cannot be converted into general category seats, even though there are no applicants under these categories. “The final round was conducted to give students another chance at applying for LLM seats as the second Covid-19 wave affected the admission process. But in the special round, we still cannot give away seats from reserved categories to those from the open category,” said the official.

MU in a statement has refuted all claims, saying the admissions was a virtual process and conducted smoothly without any errors.