To some extent, NLSIU Bangalore can’t be faulted for the lack of quantity in its communication about the last-minute announcement of the National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT), with its frequently asked questions (FAQ) page having seen an average of half a dozen or more updates per day.

And, for all its other faults, the NLAT has been supremely agile in updating its own format and making changes to its test and software.

And the NLAT and NLS people in charge have certainly not be en slacking and have all been burning the midnight oil, we understand (though it’s hard to feel too much sympathy, since the arguably impossibly-short timelines are entirely self-inflicted by the powers that be).

That said, it’s great to see feedback getting taken on board. However, all the last-minute changes (not at all helped by the 11th hour announcement) are causing candidates some serious confusion and befuddlement, and it may be too little, far too late.

This liveblog therefore intends to track and comment (and allow commenting) on the latest changes announced by NLSIU specifically about the NLAT, particularly since many of those announcements have been disseminated in an ad hoc manner to students via the FAQ page and social media channels of NLSIU.

We are tracking the FAQ pages and other channels of the NLAT closely and will update the headline of the article with each addition.

Please scroll to the bottom of the article for the latest updates and let us know in the comments or via the tips if there are any recent developments we have missed out on.

Furthermore, some important questions are not being asked or answered on the FAQs so we asked them, and whenever we have asked the NLSIU administration for comment or answers, we have not received any response.

So, in the absence of answers, we may also speculate on some possible reasons or answers.

Background

NLSIU Bangalore’s National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT) exam, launched exactly a week ago (3 September) and happening in two days (12 September). It directly competes with the other national law schools’ Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), which NLSIU used to be a part of.

But while the CLAT will be held in physical test centres, the NLAT will be an online proctored test, like the LSAT-India and the SLAT of Symbiosis.

Unlike with those other two tests, online proctoring raises its own class of problems for NLSIU, particularly when we are looking at entrance to the most popular law school, in the most competitive and popular law entrance test in India.

Tuesday, 8 September 2020

The NLS FAQs page was updated late on Tuesday (8 September) with three new points in a section entitled “exam related queries”.

3 different question papers

Two days ago we had put to NLSIU vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy and registrar Prof Sarasu Thomas the following two questions (we were not the only ones to have asked these):

• How many candidates have registered for NLAT so far? All home-proctored tests for law schools in India so far, have run their exams in staggered batches of several hundreds candidates at once. We would assume that the NLAT will have tens of thousands taking the exam at the same time. How can so many candidates be proctored at once by live humans, without hiring hundreds if not thousands of proctors?
• Further to the above, is there any risk of network congestion or other technical issues on the day for so many candidates? Since the mock exams are spread over three days, from 9-11 September, that leaves very little time to fix any technical errors that come up or to stress test the service on 12 September, when everyone will be logging in within very small time window?

Neither has responded as at the time of publication.

However, NLSIU announced on its FAQ page (the change were first spotted by @dayaar_s, on Twitter) that, indeed, like other home-proctored exams such as Symbiosis law school’s and the LSAT-India, it would not be conducting the exam in one massive batch:

Will there be normalisation of scores in UG NLAT 2020?

UG NLAT 2020 will be conducted in three sessions in line with other large examinations. It is possible that in spite of all efforts to maintain equivalence among various question papers, the difficulty level of the question papers administered in different sessions may not exactly be the same.

To overcome this, a Normalization procedure will be used to compile law scores across batches and ensure a level playing field where candidates are neither benefitted nor disadvantaged due to the difficulty level of the exam.

This, at least partially, may address some of the issues we had raised, though this could come with their own concerns.

Normalisation & separate exam pitfalls

Normalisation is not very easy to do, particularly at very short notice and without some serious testing. Who can say without testing that one question that appears in only one paper is not unintentionally and exclusively disadvantageous against candidates from certain backgrounds?

If everyone performs badly one on exam, normalisation will help, but the approach of just having three different papers is less advanced statistically than what some others have followed.

We had interviewed the LSAT-India India head Yusuf Abdul-Kareem in-depth in July about its home-proctored exam, which used US exam giant Pearson Vue’s technology back-end.

He had made it categorically clear that LSAT had been very fortunate to have staggered its exam dates.

The LSAT-India saw around 5,500 candidates take the exam over eight days, in around three slots per day, giving around 24 sessions in total. The main reason for this was to ensure that any technical or other issues faced by a batch could potentially be dealt with in real time and could re-take the test on another day (as happened to around 14% of 1,000 candidates who sat on the first day).

LSAT-India normalises its questions for each examinee (even in the same session), so theoretically no two candidates have the same paper, and then normalises scores. The advantage of this is that considering the larger number of questions, and checking how well the average candidate performed on each question, there is less of an element of one entire test paper accidentally being dodgy or containing so many or such errors to throw off all the stats completely, or being much easier or much more difficult than the other papers, which would start to make the normalisation statistics less effective.

Merit list: Now to be published, but without scores

After much criticism that the NLAT would not be transparent, due to the initial announcement that NLS would not publish a merit list, there has been a U-turn.

The FAQ asked:

Will NLSIU be publishing a merit list?

A General Merit list will be prepared prior to admissions and all students may access the marks secured and rank using their admissions login. The Provisional admission list will be provided with the names and ranks of selected students. The Marks secured by other students are personal information protected from disclosure.

One way questions

We had in July (pre-Claxit) reported the issue of not being able to navigate between questions and sections, which led to the CLAT changing and fixing it by the second mock, to allow candidates to skip between sections and questions.

Not so in the NLAT, which is purely a one-way process.

According to the FAQ, this is primarily security related:

Why does the NLAT 2020 not permit candidates to review/ revisit questions?

This is one of the measures taken to prevent candidate malpractices. In combination with the scoring pattern of the NLAT 2020 and the randomised sequencing of question sets for each candidate, this will help towards preventing unauthorised collaboration among candidates and among candidates and others.

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

A raft of changes were announced on Wednesday.

What is malpractice?

The FAQ addressed the question “what can be constituted as malpractice during the NLAT 2020?”.

The answers:

Impersonation (during candidate validation prior to examination commencement)

Inappropriate surroundings at test location External help solicited (suspected)/ Someone other than permitted scribes present in the vicinity Candidate looking in other directions continuously/ periodically Candidate talking/ communicating in any other manner with someone other than permitted scribes Talking/Speaking/Making Gestures (could include gestures that indicate use of another device/ looking at chat applications/ mirror/ other screen, etc.)

Window Switch (Accessing any other window other than the test window)

Candidate’s Face not Detected (Candidate not present in front of system)

Multiple persons detected

Foreign Device Observed (Mobile/Tablets/Calculators etc.)

Candidates observed wearing Earphones/Headphones/Bluetooth Audio devices

Simultaneous login attempts from multiple devices

We’re doing a more detailed article about malpractice shortly, so keep your eyes peeled.

How will proctors deal with power cuts? Outlook not so good

“What if I face issues related to power cut or internet connectivity?” asks the FAQ, and answers:

Instructions will be provided to candidates on the test screen as well as in advance of the examination in a ‘Candidate Manual’ in relation to situations such as power cuts/ internet failures. The assessment system used for the NLAT 2020 can permit the candidate to continue answering the question paper in the event of internet failure;

However, this is subject to the Proctor’s discretion, and subject to the candidate’s system re-connecting to the examination interface within the time frame, and in the manner stipulated in the on-screen instructions and the Candidate Manual.

That’s not entirely clear. Can you continue taking the exam when your power cuts out for longer than 10 minutes? At what point does a proctor or AI system decide it’s your fault when you are living in an area with terrible power supply or a terrible internet service provider (without naming names).

External webcams now allowed

Since the exam is supposedly available on desktop computers, but most desktop computers don’t have internal webcams, NLAT has notified the following:

Are external webcams allowed for NLAT 2020?

Yes, candidates can use external webcams for the test if their device does not have an in-built camera with the required specifications.

Thursday, 10 September

With two days to go until the exam, hot out of the gates today are more major announcements from NLS.

Simulation, like the Matrix?

The mock exam that started yesterday was basically the original 10-question sample PDF paper (first shared on 3 September), stuck into a learning management system (LMS).

However, this test apparently did not include live proctoring and the software doodad candidates need to install on their computers to ensure the computers are locked down.

So, the FAQs now state:

Will a simulation test be available?

Yes. A Simulation Test of the exact NLAT examination process will be available for candidates on September 11, 2020 at the same time as their batch for the actual NLAT exam.

Registered candidates will receive details regarding this Simulation Test on their registered Phone Numbers and Email addresses.

Timings for the three slots announced

Some might argue notifying exam timings literally two days before the exam is a bit late, but better late than never, NLSIU announced on its Instagram account that the exam would be held in three slots:

Batch 1:

Reporting time 12:00pm

Exam Start time: 12:30pm

Batch 2:

Reporting time 1:45pm

Exam Start time: 2:15pm

Batch 3:

Reporting time 3:30pm

Exam Start time: 4:00pm

Jharkhand high court to have hearing on NLAT writ as last item today

What it says above: the first-filed anti-NLAT writ petition in the Jharkhand high court has been listed for hearing as the last item today.

We will update this blog when we hear anything new, and LiveLaw has a liveblog of the hearing right now.

Senior advocate (and NLSIU alum) Sajan Poovayya is appearing for NLSIU.

Also, a third writ petition against the NLAT has been filed in the Madhya Pradesh high court, according to reports in Bar & Bench and LiveLaw.

Update 14:21: The high court has reserved its order, according to LiveLaw:

The High Court of Jharkhand on Thursday reserved orders on the preliminary issue of jurisdiction in the writ petition challenging the decision of National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, to hold a separete admission test called the National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT), after backing out of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT).

The Court will pronounce orders tomorrow on the preliminary issue of jurisdiction, given the pan-India ramifications of the exam.

Even getting over the jurisdiction point is not assured for the petitioner: the Delhi high court last month refused to hear a challenge of NLS’ reservations instituted by Karnataka, although the petitioner was resident in Delhi and wanted to join NLS (via the CLAT, back then).

According to LiveLaw the following exchange took place:

Justice Shankar: What do you say about Article 226 viz. Cause of Action?

Poovayya: I will be true to my gown and say that your lordships have jurisdiction under Article 226. But it is a matter of forum non-convenience.

A Supreme Court petition has also been filed.

Justice Shankar raised the legitimate concern over what he was to do about a “multiplicity of proceedings” if other petitions in other high courts examined the same issues.

Of course, the biggest issue in all this is time.

The exam is literally happening in two days and the wheels of justice turn infamously slowly.

Medianama asks NLS questions, gets (a few) answers, LAOT also criticises

Media industry portal Medianama has done an interesting longer take on the NLAT and its problems, and has managed to get responses from NLSIU to several oft-asked questions.

That said, the majority of responses are of the ‘we will not be confirming this right now’ variety.

Venerable blawg Law And Other Things has also published a longer criticism about transparency, accountability and access in the NLAT, written by Nalsar Hyderabad students Bhavisha Sharma and Dayaar Singla.

Can students use test centres other than the Testpan?

17:05: The latest FAQ entry reads: “Can students appear for NLAT 2020 from any other Centre outside of the list authorised by NLAT authorities?” The answer: No.

No. Our technological systems will identify the location and descriptors of all devices. If there is evidence of people working together in a single site, this will be interpreted as evidence of malpractice unless this a Centre or a group authorized by NLAT.

The answer does not clarify whether the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) initiative to create test centres, separate from the limited number of centres operated by a company called Testpan independently of NLS, is “authorised” by NLAT.

One would hope yes, though it’s not mentioned on the FAQ page so you never know...

We have reached out to NLSIU and IDIA spokespersons for comment.

NLS has released a candidate 'manual'

17:55: It is available via the candidate hub after logging in but we have shared a copy here for convenience and transparency.

It contains a detailed pictorial guide on how to log into and work with the online examination software.

It is also 18 pages long (you have been warned).

View a copy here on Documentcloud or here as a PDF.

Now (private) test centres in 35 different cities

17:59: The number of test centres provided via a private company called Testpan has now expanded from 14 as of two days ago to 35 cities now (correction: we had initially incorrectly stated there were only 34 centres).

The new list of cities is:

1 Agra Uttar Pradesh

2 Allahabad Uttar Pradesh

3 Aurangabad Maharastra

4 Bhopal Madhya Pradesh

5 Bhubaneswar Odisha

6 Bikaner Rajasthan

7 Chandigarh Chandigarh

8 Chennai Tamil Nadu

9 Dehradun Uttarakhand

10 Delhi NCT

11 Dhanbad Jharkhand

12 Gaya Bihar

13 Gorakhpur Uttar Pradesh

14 Gurugram Haryana

15 Guwahati Assam

16 Hyderabad Telangana

17 Imphal Manipur

18 Jabalpur Madhya Pradesh

19 Jaipur Rajasthan

20 Kanpur Uttar Pradesh

21 Lucknow Uttar Pradesh

22 Madurai Tamil Nadu

23 Mumbai Maharashtra

24 Nagpur Maharastra

25 Nashik Maharastra

26 Patna Bihar

27 Raipur Chattisgarh

28 Rohtak Haryana

29 Rourkela Odisha

30 Simla Himachal Pradesh

31 Srinagar Jammu & Kashmir

32 Surat Gujarat

33 Varanasi Uttar Pradesh

34 Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh

35 Warangal Telangana

That both seems a vindication of those who had been complaining that an online test won't be accessible to many but it’s really a mix of good and bad news.

Good news for those who have unstable internet / small houses with big locked down families without quiet and separate rooms to use for an exam / ‘incompatible’ or otherwise unsuitable devices or laptops.

On the other, less good news, all of these test centres are in major metro cities and it pales in comparison to the 200+ test centres offered by Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), where the CLAT has provided detailed hygiene norms for each centre, for instance.

By contrast, the NLAT takes zero responsibility for what happens at a Testpan centre, stating in the FAQs:

Please note that NLSIU is not responsible for technical problems, internet outages or any other issues that may arise at Testpan centres. The arrangement is a private agreement between Testpan and the candidate and NLSIU does not bear any liability in relation to the same.

Finally, and more fundamentally, a big problem is that it may be nearly impossible to ensure parity of experience between those in a test centre, those taking the exam at home on a fast broadband connection with a state-of-the-art computer, and those trying to take the exam on a tiny-screened Android phone (which is supposedly possible, according to the NLAT).

IDIA centres will be whitelisted

19:38: Further to the above update to the FAQ, we have received clarification that Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) test centres will be allowed besides the (semi-officially) endorsed Testpan ones.

A senior NLSIU administration official confirmed: “We’re collaborating closely with IDIA and their centres will be whitelisted.”

SC to hear Venkata Rao's petition tomorrow

19:44: LiveLaw has reported that the Supreme Court will tomorrow hear the former NLSIU vice chancellor’s petition.

The case will be heard before a bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan.

Friday, 11 September 2020: 1 day to go

Welcome to today’s NLAT-Claxit liveblog, with only one day to go until the exam, which is standing on a knife edge.

Supreme Court petition today

10:31: This is the big one: considering that even at such short notice, at least two petitions have been filed in high courts which are not in Karnataka, the Supreme Court might end up being the right place to hear this.

The Supremes will be hearing the petition of former NLS VC Prof Venkata Rao (case reference: W.P.(C) No. 1030/2020 PIL-W). The hearing is before virtual court number 4 via video conferencing, before Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and MR Shah.

Court 4 will start its business at 10:30am, and the case is 35th in the (supplementary) cause list, so it could take some time before their justices get there.

Other items: Cheating, FAQs, Jharkhand HC, simulation

And in case you missed it, we published a deep dive yesterday into how one could cheat on the NLAT and how it would be very very hard for any vendor to do anything about it. Do check it out and let us have your feedback.

Most likely there will be some updates to NLS’ ever-evolving FAQ page also and maybe also some responses to some of the unanswered questions above.

Also, the Jharkhand high court is to give its order today (though it was only luke warm to the idea yesterday, and with the Supreme Court looking into it, it may decide not to intervene).

The NLAT has also announced a ‘simulation’ of the exam for candidates, which will be closer to the real experience with actual time slots and proctoring, as opposed to the mock exam which was a less hardcore affair.

30,000+ candidates so far have registered for NLAT

Thanks to a commenter for pointing out, more than 30,000 students have registered for the NLAT, according to senior advocate Sajan Poovayya who was representing his alma mater in Jharkhand yesterday.

“If we don’t start the year, we will have a zero year. We have 30,298 students ready to write the examination,” he had told the bench, according to LiveLaw.

That’s fewer than the 50,000 we would have predicted to have an appetite for the NLAT but still a considerable number of registrations in just eight days (and 50% more than both the Symbiosis Law Admissions Test and NLU Delhi, which both get around 20,000 takers).

At fees of Rs 125 (for SC/ST) to Rs 150 per candidate, that means NLS would gross revenues of anything between Rs 37.5 lakh and Rs 45 lakh.

How much of that will go to its tech vendor Cocubes, which is a subsidiary of multinational HR giant Aon, is harder to guess at though.

Jharkhand dismisses writ petition due to jurisdiction, MP writ withdrawn

10:57: It’s all down to the Supreme Court now (thought the high court judges that saw NLAT writ petitions).

The counsel for the petitioner in Jharkhand, Shubham Gautam, told us that the matter had been dismissed with the observation that jurisdiction did not lie with the Jharkhand high court. The bench did not pass any order or stay since the case has pan-India ramifications.

However, article 226(2) did give the court the discretion to interfere in such matters, he added.

LiveLaw has the full report on the order.

11:01: Also, the Madhya Pradesh high court writ against the NLAT has been withdrawn, reported Bar & Bench:

The Court asked the petitionerʼs counsel, “You want to pursue or withdraw take a chance before Karnataka High Court?”

Whereas the petitioner made submissions to persuade the Court that the plea may be entertained before the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the Bench was not convinced.

The Court also cited the forum non conveniens principle, in this respect. It further disagreed with the petitionerʼs submission that the High Court may have wider jurisdiction than the Supreme Court.

“You can withdraw. We will permit you to withdraw and wait for the outcome”, the Court remarked.

In the face of the bench, the petitioner reportedly withdrew the petition.

Poovayya was also counsel for NLS in this petition.

Simulation & final exam time slots still not confirmed

11:28: The NLAT tomorrow (yes, already!) will be held in three separate 45 minute time slots, from 12:00pm, 1:45pm and 3:30pm.

The ‘simulation’ (like a super-mock) today will also be held in those same three time slots (though NLAT said that a candidate might not necessarily have the same time slot for the simulation that they would have in the final exam, so make sure you check your timings carefully).

If they ever arrive that is. So far, no time slots have been communicated to candidates at all, we understand from sources taking the NLAT, neither for the actual exam (with just over 24 hours to go), nor for the simulation (the first of which is supposed to start in half an hour).

That does not bode well. We have asked an NLS spokesperson for comment on when these will go out.

First simulation batch now underway (though others not yet confirmed)

12:32: Apparently the first slot for the simulation was for 12:30pm and candidates have now received emails announcing that they are up in that slot, as late as 12:20pm for some, only 10 minutes before the exam.

Whether candidates have 2nd or 3rd slots of the day has not yet been communicated (nor which slot they will have for the actual exam tomorrow).

Supreme Court: NLAT will be happening tomorrow

13:39: The Supreme Court declined to stay the NLAT but restrained NLSIU from declaring results and starting admissions, reported LiveLaw.

The next listed date is 16 September.

That puts both candidates and ‘Law School’ in a particular pickle.

Candidates will take the exam without knowing whether the results will even be valid.

Law School meanwhile, will have to adjust its schedule. The schedule notified envisages notification of results and provisional admission list by email on 15 September, with the academic term due to commence on 18 September.

The first of those dates will now have to be postponed, while the second is now subject to a lot of maybes.

First simulation was a chaotic clusterf*ck, according to candidates

13:50: We have just published a story sharing multiple accounts from candidates about how the first simulation had gone badly in nearly every way.

As we had reported above, notifications of time slots came late (more than half an hour after the start of the exam in some cases).

Furthermore, the automatic machine learning / AI proctoring apparently did not really flag much suspicious behaviour, and when it did, it was very easy to fool by having people hiding under desks, not kidding.

Read our full story for more details.

Simulation slot 2: Also has teething issues

14:02: The next slot’s reporting time is due to start at 1:45pm with the exam at 2:15pm.

Final exam time slots are beginning to get released

14:09: We understand that some candidates have begun receiving emails confirming their time slots for tomorrow’s final exam.

However, some of those candidates have not received time slots for their upcoming simulated mocks yet.

NLS responds to some issues raised in our deep-dive piece on cheating

15:01: NLSIU has updated its website FAQs again with information clarifying some issues, which we had raised in our article on the possibility of undetected cheating in the NLAT yesterday.

In particular, we had speculated that the small batch size of NLS “would give it the ability to manually get human post mortem proctors to do very close watches of the video of every single candidate who makes it to the final merit list, in order to spot any anomalies. We are not sure if NLS is planning this kind of close scrutiny but this kind of oversight would most probably catch any attempt by someone like Thanos to sit the exam”.

NLS has now confirmed that such closer forensic investigations of successful candidates will indeed be happening, as expected. According to its FAQ:

Can the exam sessions of candidates be scrutinised after the exam?

Further investigation post the examination will be carried out with help of audit logs generated on the system, and NLSIU may disqualify the candidate upon such examination.

How will the proctoring system help in ensuring that malpractices are observed?

The proctoring process is a three-layered system involving a combination of human, AI and super proctors. While the human proctor will closely monitor the candidates writing the exam, detailed reports on all activities of the candidate during the exam will be generated by the examination system.

These reports will be further scrutinised in minute detail before any offers of admission are made.

While this answers some questions, it does leave some others.

For instance, will proctors have access to enough data in the “audit logs” to enable them to adjudicate with confidence about whether someone was dishonest?

Will candidates who might get disqualified despite not having cheated have any recourse or appeals process?

We had also reported yesterday on the possibility shared with us by candidates of using a tiny pocket calculator, secreted about the A4 sheets or elsewhere, to give an unfair edge in the exam.

What if a student is keeping other devices like a calculator or another phone during the examination?

If a candidate is caught looking in other directions continuously, or is suspected to be using or looking at any other device, the candidate will be asked to show the surroundings, tilt the screen or do a 360-degree sweep of the room.

While it does respond to the concern, it is not certain that a simple sweep of a room via webcam is going to be enough to detect something as small and easily hideable as a pocket calculator, particularly if you have up to 55 seconds time to comply with such sweep.

And, as we had reported today, one candidate managed to hide two entire human beings when asked to do a simulated mock test ‘camera sweep’ ordered by a proctor.

Technical glitches in accessing the simulation

15:37: We have been receiving complaints all day about technical glitches in accessing the exam, including stuff like:

• “the test is not opening”.
• “I am waiting from 1.45 and the verification is not done yet”.
• the “Waiting for verification” message keeps showing indefinitely when trying to log in.
• “CoCubes Assessment installed in mobile. 20200911Got a application number and password but it is not opening now. I got two messages with two different passwords. Nothing is opening.”

Apparently, a lot of candidates have also been seeing the emails from NLS being mis-filed by Google’s Gmail service into the ‘promotions’ folder, where it might not be seen amongst emails from Flipkart, Zomato and others. Not exactly NLS’ fault, though also something that seems like it could have been avoided with more time to plan.

In any case, the lesson is: if awaiting an email from the NLAT, also check your promotions folder.

NLS confirms: Only 27,500 are eligible for exam

Update 18:51: Better late than never and after multiple requests from us and other media outlets, NLS has finally confirmed the number of candidates who will be sitting.

The number is lower than the 30,298 number its counsel, Sajan Poovayya, had shared with the Jharkhand high court yesterday.

According to a statement by registrar Prof Sarasu Thomas:

Over 27,500 students are eligible to appear for the exam. The examination will be conducted in three batches for the UG NLAT 2020, and one batch for the PG NLAT 2020.

We have asked NLS for further comment about how many candidates actually managed to take the mock simulation test today, since we have literally received dozens of reports of candidates who could not access the simulation due to apparent bugs or technical errors on the NLAT side.

The NLS note also stated that:

The University has facilitated access to over 35 centres for NLAT 2020 registered candidates to appear for the exam. All necessary COVID health protocols will be observed at these centres.

That said, despite the reassurance, it’s worth bearing in mind that for the small number of candidates who have chosen to take the NLAT at a physical centre (we have asked for confirmation of that number), “NLSIU does not bear any liability” and theirs is a “private agreement” with the third party test centre.

NLS issues reassurance about integrity of exam

18:55: On the eve of tomorrow’s final exam, despite the numerous issues that have been highlighted about the simulated mock exam today (see several posts and links above in our liveblog), NLSIU has also released an “examination integrity announcement”, signed by registrar Thomas.

Comfortingly, the announcement states: “We are confident that no candidate who engages in examination malpractice will secure admission to the University.”

However, NLS also notes that while “we cannot prevent a student’s attempt to circumvent these integrity measures, any evidence of examination malpractice will be taken extremely seriously and will result indisqualification”.

Text of full statement below, PDF link here:

The National Law Aptitude Test 2020 (“NLAT 2020”) is a public entrance examination that seeks to maintain a high standard of academic integrity. Unless you have been granted special permission, candidates must appear for the Examination with no assistance from any other person and avoid interaction with devices or resources apart from the examination paper for the entire duration of the examination.

We have adopted robust technological measures and proctoring processes to maintain the integrity of the examination. We urge all candidates to take no risks with the proctoring and technological restrictions in place for the examination. Our integrity measures will come into full effect during and after the examination process as we review a comprehensive electronic record of the examination. While we cannot prevent a student’s attempt to circumvent these integrity measures, any evidence of examination malpractice will be taken extremely seriously and will result in disqualification.

We reassure all candidates appearing for NLAT 2020 to participate in the examination with full confidence. We are confident that no candidate who engages in examination malpractice will secure admission to the University.

Full information about the protocols and processes to be followed are accessible on our website.

We wish all candidates the very best as we focus on delivering NLAT 2020 on September 12, 2020.

Good luck and good night

19:06: And on that note we will probably be signing off from this liveblog for today.

We wish all NLAT takers and NLS aspirants the very best of luck tomorrow, a very good night’s sleep tonight and hope that none of you will fret or stress excessively about tomorrow.

As with any entrance exam, even if it doesn’t work out, there are other options and not cracking the NLAT won’t be the end of the world.

Thank you everyone who followed and shared your experiences with us and other readers. Comments will of course remain open under this blog.