Hon’ble Shashi Kant Gupta, J.—By means of the instant writ petition the petitioners have sought the issuance of a writ in the nature of certiorari for quashing the notice/advertisement (Annexure-1) issued by Respondent No. 3-the examination conducting university, in so far as it seeks to prescribe the maximum age limit of 20 years as an essential criterion for appearing in the Common Law Admission Test -2015 (in short “CLAT-2015).

2. This Court after hearing the learned counsel for the petitioners had issued notice by its order dated 4.2.2015 to Respondent Nos. 1 to 3 directing them to file counter-affidavit within two weeks, while the petitioner was directed to take steps through speed post within three days.

3. The office has submitted its report dated 23.2.2015, indicating that notices were issued to the Respondent Nos. 1 to 3 through speed post, fixing 24.2.2015 as the date of hearing but neither acknowledgement nor the undelivered cover has returned after service of notice as yet and as per computer enquiry, no counter-affidavit has been filed on behalf of the Respondent Nos. 1 to 3.

4. Since the notice sent to the respondents has not returned after service, the service upon them would be deemed to be sufficient as per the rules of the Court.

5. The facts as emerge from the pleadings in the writ petition may briefly be noted for appreciating the issues :

6. The Petitioners No. 3, 6, 17 and 20 have completed their schooling in the year 2012. Petitioners No. 1, 5, 7, 10, 13, 14 and 16 have completed their schooling in the year 2013. Petitioners No. 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 19 and 21 have completed their schooling in the year 2014. Petitioner No. 18 is appearing in the qualifying examination in March/April 2015.

7. The Petitioners No. 1, 12 and 20 qualified CLAT last year, but did not take admission as they were getting low ranking Universities. Hence, they took the valiant decision of leaving it with the hope of getting a better college this year.

8. Since the petitioners wanted to pursue law as a profession, they chose to sacrifice their most valuable years in the academic preparation for CLAT 2015 so as to achieve this goal of entering in one of the leading National Law Schools of the country. For accomplishing this, they enrolled themselves in various renowned Law Tutorials in Allahabad in order to crack CLAT-2015.

9. At this stage, the attention of the Court was drawn to the historical background of CLAT which was introduced as a consequence of proceedings before the Apex Court for mitigating the hardship, both physical and financial, of the candidates due to multiple tests conducted by different colleges. The Law Commission of India in its 184th Report recommended that instead of requiring ‘’effective consultation’ with each University, the Advocates Act should instead be suitably amended to enable BCI to consult a representative body, which body, in turn should be constituted by UGC, thus ensuring that both BCI and UGC remains equal partners in regulating legal education.

10. Earlier the Bar Council of India (hereinafter mentioned as ‘’BCI’) had prescribed the maximum age limit of 20 years for admission in the stream of Integrated Bachelor of Law Degree Program by means of Clause 28, Schedule III Rule 11 of the Legal Education Rule, 2008. However, later on the BCI withdrew the said condition by issuing a notification in the gazette.

11. This year CLAT-2015 is being organized by Respondent No. 3, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow, which published notice/advertisement inviting applications for CLAT-2015 for admission to 16 National Law Schools in different parts of the country. To the utter shock of the petitioners, the maximum age limit for appearing in the CLAT Entrance-2015 was prescribed as 20 years and the last date for submission of Online Application Form is 31.3.2015 (11:59 p.m.), and the exam is scheduled on 10.5.2015.

12. According to the petitioners, they have completed all the requi