Over 31,000 law students in Maharashtra left in the lurch

There were at least 45,000 applicants from all over India who appeared for the CET exam

The fate of over 38,000 aspiring LLB first year students (both from Maharashtra and outside) continues to hang in limbo, after their centralised admission process (CAP) for the first round that was to start on February 3, was cancelled at the last moment due to technical difficulties. Already due to COVID-19 the examination that is held by the Higher Secondary and Technical Education department was delayed and even two months after declaring results, the admission is yet to begin. Students now fear loss of the academic year.

Students fear losing a year. File pic

However, a CET Cell official said he has the final report of the 5 year course (11,586 applicants registered for it, of these 9,025 approved post scrutiny, 485 on hold) and by Friday noon, students will be able to check their admission details on the portal, while those for the 3 year course will be able to do it by the weekend.

"Out of 45,000 applicants from all over India who had appeared for CET exam before the LLB 3 years course (2020-21), 38,278 applied for the CAP round. Of these in the first round, 33,219 registered until the deadline, of which 31,228 were from Maharashtra and 1,984 from outside the state. The remaining applications were not filed within the stipulated cut-off date set by CET and hence will be taken in the second round," said the students.

Aditya Chavan, 22, a resident of Aurangabad, had floated Common Entrance students' mobile study groups for the LLB 3 years course and has around 250 members in each group. He had scored 76 marks in the CET.

Chavan said, "The state CET cell and even the Maharashtra Information Technology department could have handled the entire process more professionally. We were initially informed through the CET portal that our CAP first round college list would be released by February 3 at 5 pm. It was later speculated to be out by 9.30 pm the same night. However, no list was out, and instead, a little past 9.30 pm, it was flashed that the CAP list would be delayed due to some technical glitches."

"Until Thursday (February 3), the students were anxious about the allotment of college, but post 9.30 pm, most students expressed their frustration, as they were concerned about losing an academic year. First due to the COVID outbreak, the CET examination was delayed by almost some months, and now due to Maha-IT technical glitches, the admission for first year law is getting delayed," added Chavan.

He further pointed out a glaring area of concern, stating, "The final merit list of CET was declared post scrutiny on January 27. However, on January 31, the CET declared a fresh merit list and pointed out that nearly 23 applicants had either got a high CET score or a lower one and so CET had to make further changes in the merit list, in the larger interest of maximum students. In two cases, the applicant had almost mentioned their CET score as 90 marks and 100 marks, when they had actually scored less than 65 marks in CET examination. It is not clear if the same was a software glitch. How could such glaring errors happen? And the worst, had these errors been not rectified, deserving students would have missed their chance to get into a better college. A probe is a must to find out the truth and I hope the authorities make it public," said Chavan.

Advait Khare, 21, a resident of Pune, had scored 94 marks in CET. He said, "They (MahaCET cell) could have handled this better. We can understand the initial delay for conducting the CET examination due to the pandemic outbreak. However, post declaration of CET results in the first week of December, making students wait for college allocation for nearly two months, is nothing but taking them for granted. We are losing a precious year for no fault of ours."

When asked the reason for delay, Khare said, "The buzz amongst the students is about the technical glitch in allocation of five-year law students' admissions, where over 400 students options duplicated on MahaIT database and hence a third-party audit verification is underway. I hope the academic year starts at least by March - April or else we will be joining the next batch of CET applicants, whose entrance exam will be in May or June 2021."

Ashok Roy Chowdhry,64, a retired banker and resident of Andheri (W), who scored 91 marks in CET, said, "I can understand the apprehension and anxiety that the young students in their early twenties are going through. A delay in getting admission means the loss of a year and for a retired banker like me, such a delay, is not an area of concern."

"But having said so, I would compliment the MahaCET, as I am of the view that they had tried their best to accommodate as many students as possible for enrolment. For the same, the MahaCET allowed entries of those students also, whose documents/applications were not complete. This effort of MahaCET is praiseworthy and I am hopeful that in next couple of days, the admission list will also be out," said Chowdhry.

The other side
A senior official overlooking the data base of CAP said, "The verification of allocation of college seats is going on and the work has been allotted to a third party, who is facing some technical glitches. They will be resolved soon and unless entire verification process is completed, the list cannot be uploaded. Our team has been working day in day out, to resolve the issue at the earliest. The MahaIT team is handing LLB3 year, LLB5 year and even Agriculture CET and allocation of admission."

Chintamani Joshi, Commissioner and Competent Authority, State Common Entrance Test Cell said, "It was during the course of final cross verification of data submitted by MahaIT team that we found some technical glitches and were keen that the data should not be uploaded with these glaring errors. Therefore in the larger interest of students and colleges, error free data was uploaded. Hence a third-party audit verification process was also started. I now have the final report of the 5 year course with me and by Friday noon, students will be able to get check their admission details on the portal. Also, the students will get their admit cards for respective colleges. For the 3 year course it will be out by the weekend."

On the planning of the academic year for first year law students, Joshi stated, "MahaCET has ensured that not a single meritorious student should have any difficulty in getting admission. We have tried our best to facilitate them and on the basis of merit marks, we have tried to allocate the college. It is now upto the college and the respective universities/education department to plan the academic year accordingly."

He added, "We will do a retrospective analysis of the entire process carried out this time and work on the technical grey areas, so that the coming CET students do not have to face similar problems in future. Our aim is to conduct examinations and carry out seamless meritorious admission process within the stipulated time slot, to benefit the students."