NEW DELHI: The old saying that age is no bar for learning will apply from this year to those desiring to appear in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) , the screening gateway for admission to prestigious national law universities (NLU).The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed an appeal by Lucknow-based Dr Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University (RMLNLU), which had challenged an Allahabad High Court order directing the university to remove the age limit of 20 years for candidates wishing to appear in CLAT this year.CLAT is an all-India entrance examination conducted on rotation by the 16 national law universities for admissions to their under-graduate and post-graduate degree programmes (LLB and LLM). CLAT-2015 will be conducted by RMLNLU. The last date for submission of online applications for CLAT is March 31.One Devasheesh Pathak and 20 others had moved the HC challenging the condition that anyone desirous of appearing in CLAT-2015 should not be more than 20 years of age. Of these 21 candidates, three had cleared CLAT in 2014 but had not taken admission as they did not get an NLU of their choice.The HC was informed that Bar Council of India (BCI), which is the regulating body for legal education and profession, had earlier prescribed the maximum age limit of 20 years for admission to five-year integrated bachelor of law degree programmes through its Legal Education Rules, 2008.This age limit was challenged in various high courts. The Punjab and Haryana high court and some other high courts had struck down the age limit for taking admission in the five-year integrated law courses. Consequently, the BCI on September 28, 2013, withdrew the condition imposing maximum age limit for admission to integrated law courses.The petitioners informed the HC that there was no upper age limit prescribed for taking admission to BEd, CA, CS and MBA courses. Justice Shashi Kant Gupta of the HC, in his order on February 26, said, “I am constrained to say that RMLNLU has completely shut its eyes and has not considered that when the BCI itself has withdrawn the notification prescribing upper age limit of 20 years for admission in the stream of integrated bachelor of law degree programme, RMLNLU had no authority in law to prescribe the upper age limit for appearing in CLAT-2015 which is merely an examination conducting university.“The university cannot go beyond the statutory provisions as have been laid down under the Advocates Act and the Bar Council of India Rules. Thus, the CLAT organizing university went beyond the power envisaged under the Act by prescribing 20 years as the maximum age limit for CLAT-2015.” He directed the examination conducting university to erase the condition relating to upper age limit for candidates.The RMLNLU appealed against this judgment before the SC. But a bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and C Nagappan dismissed the appeal confirming the HC order.