CLAT 2015 will go down in the history of national competitive exams in India as the most ludicrous and incompetent examination that openly insulted the intelligence of thousands of candidates and played with their careers with an unbelievably sick mentality. The entire CLAT 2015 affair reflected an authoritarian attitude that comes disturbingly close to that of a sadist.

When the baton of executive responsibility and administration in any organization is passed on by “rotation” and not on the basis of proven credentials and experience, the doom of that organization cannot be too far away.

After the prestige of CLAT has been lowered extensively across the country, it should be time for some genuine introspection and rethinking. The entire group of all-powerful Vice Chancellors of NLUs should view the CLAT 2015 disaster as a wake-up call, and show the determination and courage that the country expects of them.

It is time to create a permanent, centralized CLAT body that will conduct this exam every year, starting from 2016.

Learn from Others

In the same year when India achieved its independence, the representatives of Harvard, Yale, Columbia and other law schools in the United States met and discussed the design of Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Following their meeting in November 1947, the first LSAT was conducted in 1948.

Remember, this occurred nearly 70 years ago, when the U.S. was barely recovering from the ravages of the Second World War. Just for the record, Harvard University alone is today sitting on a cash reserve (endowment fund) of $33 billion, which earned an annual return of 15.7% in 2014. This amount is higher than the annual GDP of at least 30 countries around the world.

Can’t Harvard afford to conduct an entrance test of its own? Why does it continue to accept the scores of LSAT, which is conducted by an independent non-profit organization? Why does Harvard club itself with several hundreds of other law schools around the U.S. and internationally as a part of LSAT?

The answer is: Only dwarfs need a false ego to inflate their size, giants do not.

Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton are not comprised of irrational, incompetent proverbial ostriches who will bury their heads in sand, and drag their own country along with themselves to certain doom.

Dangers of Denial

CLAT 2015 raised incompetence to the level of a fine art. But the problem is not that the disaster took place. The problem is that there is no one to take blame, no one to accept responsibility, no one to change things.

A steadfast denial of incompetence is not incompetence any longer. It is something far more ill and debilitating.

There is cure for incompetence. But there is no cure for the denial of incompetence, for the unwillingness to change. That is cancer.

CLAT 2015 was merely its malignant pimple on the surface.

There is an urgent need for an MRI, followed by an immediate surgery to remove the cancer and restore the health of the national legal education system of the country.