Law Students Move Delhi High Court Seeking Transparency in NLU- D’s Moot Court Competition; Seek Disclosure of Competition Records and Marks Secured [READ PETITION]

A petition has been filed before the bench of Justice Jayant Nath in Delhi High Court for issuing a direction upon the Moot Court Organizing Committee of National Law University, Delhi (NLU) to release the marks obtained by the Petitioners in the moot court competition.

The Petitioners are students of University Law College (ULC) Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar who had participated in the National Moot Court Competition organized by National Law University, Delhi.

 Debashish Kumar Panda, Deep Kumar Mohanty, and Dinesh Kumar Samanta are the petitioners who had participated as a team in the 70th Constitution day moot court competition.

The petitioners are being represented in the court by Advocate Satya Ranjan Swain.

In the plea filed before the court, the petitioners contend that they were first informed that they have been shortlisted for the oral round but later they were informed that there had been some error with regard to scores so they are not selected for the final round.

The petitioners then asked for clarification from the Moot Court Organizing Committee of National Law University, Delhi (NLU) for their sudden disqualification and also requested to reveal the marks obtained by them in the memorial round but there was no feedback from the Moot Court Organizing Committee of National Law University, Delhi.

The petitioner’s argued that the National Law University, Delhi did not give convincing reasons for their disqualification and merely stated that it is unknown to them whether the error is human or technological 

The petitioners stated that they have the right to know the marks obtained by them in memorials as they had registered and submitted their memorials on time.

The petitioners further contended that such actions of the Moot Court Organizing Committee of National Law University, Delhi (NLU) are violative of principles of natural justice and the theme of the moot competition which was ‘Kartavya’ (Duty) as the moot court committee failed to maintain transparency.

The petitioners claimed that they faced mental torment and embarrassment because of this incident.

The petitioner’s in the closing statement of the petition states that they are under the impression that such an error made by the Moot Court Organizing Committee of National Law University, Delhi (NLU) is not a genuine one and fails the test of reasonableness under Article 14 of the Constitution Of India.

The petition is listed for hearing on October 19, 2020.

[READ PETITION]