Deepali Kalia-
Supreme Court bench comprising of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and L Nageswara Rao refused to stay the revised admission notification issued by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru on June 22nd which announced 25% horizontal compartmentalized reservation for Karnataka students in admissions for the academic year 2021-22.
The Bench refused to pass any interim order and permitted the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) which is scheduled on July 23rd to be held.
The interim prayer for stay was made in a special leave petition filed by the State of Karnataka which challenged the Karnataka High Court’s judgment on October 2020 that struck down the amendment act passed by the Karnataka Assembly to give 25% of compartmentalized reservation to Karnataka students.
The revised admission notification was a clear attempt to supersede the Karnataka High Court’s judgment, argued Senior Advocate Gopal Shankaranarayan, appeared on behalf of the applicant seeking for stay.
On the other hand, the Advocate General of Karnataka Prabhuling Navadgi submitted that the High Court had quashed the amendment act on the basis that the legislature was not competent to introduce reservation in NLSIU. However, the Executive Council of the NLSIU’s power to introduce reservation was recognized by the High Court hence, the present notification doesn’t contradict the High Court’s verdict.
The Advocate further submitted that Shankaranarayan’s client cannot approach the Court in the capacity of a Public Interest Litigant as in the matters of college admissions Public Interest Litigation cannot be filed.
Senior Advocate Gopal Shankaranarayan on the other hand argued that the latest notification issued by NLSIU is a ‘last-minute change’ in the admission criteria which as per last year’s Apex Court judgment against the NLAT proposed by the NLSIU is not permissible.
The Bench has listed the matter to be heard further in August.