Blacklisting of Lexwiz on the Ground of Non-compliance with Qualifying Clauses

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RE: Blacklisting of Lexwiz on the ground of non-compliance with qualifying clauses

Date: November 26, 2013

Questions Presented:

1. Can Mr. Shukla approach the supreme court of Jalladpur and challenge the blacklisting of Lexwiz for violation of Art. 14 ?

2. Can he approach the High Court of Sardarpura for the same?

Short Answer:

There was violation of Article 14 within the meaning of principle of natural justice in the process of blacklisting as the client was neither served a notice nor given an opportunity to present his case before the board. He can approach the Supreme Court under article 32 and file a writ petition for the same. Ideally, he can also approach the High Court of Sardarpura under art. 226 .

Facts:

The Bar Council of Jalladpur, under the direction of Supreme Court set up an independent authority to conduct CLAT examination called Common Law Admission Authority (CLAA) by issuing a circular. According to the circular, CLAA had a Governing Body (GB) consisting of Vice chancellors of the 14 NLUs of Jalladpur one of which was Ms. Bholi Pujaaban of Patanjali Law University. The GB floated a tender notice inviting IT firms to set up protocols for examination procedures. The companies submitting the tender submitted an undertaking saying they will not lobby with CLAA or have pecuniary/ personal relationship with any of its members. Lexwiz, which scored the highest in the evaluation test by the technical sub-committee of the GB had Anil Shukla as its managing partner who had been a research assistant under Ms. Bholi Punjaaban as a student at Patanjali Law University. Though his position had no remuneration, all his expenses had been reimbursed during his tenure. In light of this fact, Lexwiz was blacklisted f...

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2. The court may consider the principle of violation of natural justice after taking into cognisance the fact that there might have been bias and may take the route taken in Eurasian and order that the client be given a chance of hearing as was held in Vilanganandan case which is the most probable course considering the loose standards of judgement of bias in English as well as Indian common law.

3. The court may declare there was misrepresentation on the part of the client and dismiss the petition to be non-maintainable.

However, keeping in mind the precedents, it may be said that an opportunity of hearing is most likely to be provided to the client as the blacklisting was done without conforming to the facet of audi altarem parti which prescribes that a person be given a notice and sufficient opportunity to represent himself before being blacklisted.

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