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

The fate of over 38000 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 COVID19 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 yearStudents fear losing a year File picHowever a CET Cell official said he has the final report of the 5 year course 11586 applicants registered for it of these 9025 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 weekendldquoOut of 45000 applicants from all over India who had appeared for CET exam before the LLB 3 years course 202021 38278 applied for the CAP round Of these in the first round 33219 registered until the deadline of which 31228 were from Maharashtra and 1984 from outside the state The remaining applications were not filed within the stipulated cutoff date set by CET and hence will be taken in the second roundrdquo said the studentsAditya 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 CETChavan said ldquoThe 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 930 pm the same night However no list was out and instead a little past 930 pm it was flashed that the CAP list would be delayed due to some technical glitchesldquoUntil Thursday February 3 the students were anxious about the allotment of college but post 930 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 MahaIT technical glitches the admission for first year law is getting delayed added ChavanHe further pointed out a glaring area of concern stating ldquoThe 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 publicrdquo said ChavanAdvait Khare 21 a resident of Pune had scored 94 marks in CET He said ldquoThey 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 oursWhen asked the reason for delay Khare said ldquoThe buzz amongst the students is about the technical glitch in allocation of fiveyear law students admissions where over 400 students options duplicated on MahaIT database and hence a thirdparty audit verification is underway I hope the academic year starts at least by March ndash April or else we will be joining the next batch of CET applicants whose entrance exam will be in May or June 2021Ashok Roy Chowdhry64 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 concernldquoBut 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 documentsapplications 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 outrdquo said ChowdhryThe other sideA senior official overlooking the data base of CAP said ldquoThe 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 admissionChintamani Joshi Commissioner and Competent Authority State Common Entrance Test Cell said ldquoIt 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 thirdparty 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 weekendOn the planning of the academic year for first year law students Joshi stated ldquoMahaCET 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 universitieseducation department to plan the academic year accordinglyrdquoHe 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