SC won't interfere with first round of CLAT-2018 counselling
New Delhi, June 13 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to interfere with the first round of CLAT-2018 counselling for admissions to 19 national law universities and colleges.
The first round of counselling that commenced on June 10 will be over by Friday.
A bench of Justice U.U. Lalit and Justice Deepak Gupta directed Kochi-based National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS) to complete by June 15 the exercise of compensating students who faced technical glitches in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2018.
It also asked NULAS, which conducted the CLAT-2018, to come up with a revised list by June 16 based on the formula suggested by two-member Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC) and include qualified students in the second round of counselling.
On June 11, the apex court had refused to issue order to re-conduct the CLAT-2018 or stop the counselling process for admissions over complaints of technical glitches during the May 13 examination, and asked the GRC to go through the complaints of time lost by students during the test.
Headed by former Kerala High Court Judge M.R. Hariharan Nair and comprising Professor Santosh Kumar, the GRC -- set up by the court on May 25 to look into the complaints -- has to complete the task of evaluating 400 complaints and deciding, based on normalisation formula linked to time lost due to technical glitches, the compensation of marks by June 15.
The committee has suggested that students, who suffered time loss due to technical glitches, can be awarded compensatory marks after taking note of the data of total correct and incorrect answers given by them during the online test.
The court's order came on a batch of petitions by students who sought scrapping of the CLAT-2018 online test.
They said there were technical glitches during the exam. There were also allegations of cheating as some centres gave excess time to some students to make up for the lost time on account of the glitches in operating the computers.
The online CLAT-2018 examination was held on May 13 in which more than 54,464 candidates appeared aspiring for admission to 19 law university colleges.
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Jhansi fire: Nurse's heroic efforts helped save over dozen babies
Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.
