Guj law univ grants admission to previously rejected student

The Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) on Tuesday finally gave admission the Kolkata boy who was earlier refused, on the grounds that he had passed his Class 12 examination on the second attempt. The boy, Donnie Ashok, is the son of poor painter of Kolkata.

The boy’s lawyer, Mukul Sinha, said that the GNLU had informed Justice KS Jhaveri of the Gujarat high court that it had granted admission to the boy.

“Hence the petition was disposed of,” said Sinha. Donnie had scored 133 out of 200 marks in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)-2012 and was among the top 500 successful students of the examination.

However, he had to approach the Gujarat high court when he was denied admission by the GNLU on the ground that he had passed the Class 12 examination on the second attempt.

“We had submitted before the court that there is no rule in the constitution of the GNLU saying that repeaters are not eligible for admission. They had mentioned it only in their prospectus. Hence the university institute could not have denied admission,” Sinha said.

Last week, the high court had reserved one seat at GNLU after conducting a primary hearing of the case and had sought explanation from the law university. When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, the institute informed the court that they had given admission to the boy.

The boy was not able to pass the HSC examination on his first attempt as he was forced to drop out from his school because of difficult pecuniary circumstances.

A charity initiative, Increasing Diversity to Increase Access (IDIA), came to his rescue and paid his fees. Donnie was able to resume studies but only one month before the final examinations. As a result of this, he failed in the Class 12 examination on his first attempt. However, on his second attempt, he passed and also cleared CLAT successfully. His all-India rank in CLAT was 427 and he had opted to study at GNLU.