The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the revision of the merit list for CLAT-UG 2025, after flagging several errors in the question paper, and expressing strong disapproval of the manner in which the exam was conducted by the Consortium of National Law Universities. A Bench comprising Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice A.G. Masih issued directions to delete or revise answers to several flawed questions and criticised the Consortium’s approach as careless.
The Court partly set aside the directions issued by the Delhi High Court and directed that certain questions be deleted, while marks be awarded for specific alternate correct answers. “At the outset, we must express our anguish at the causal manner in which the Consortium has been framing the questions for the CLAT examination which involves the career aspirations of lakhs of students in the country,” the Bench remarked.
The Bench also pulled up the Union Government and Bar Council of India (BCI) for inaction despite earlier concerns raised in the 2018 judgment in WP(C) No. 551/2018 regarding CLAT conduct. Notices have been issued to both, returnable next Friday.
Directions on Specific Questions
- Question 56: Related to environmental duties. The Court observed the answer key wrongly restricted the duty to protect the environment only to the State. “Option (c) should also be considered correct,” said the Court, directing positive marks for both (c) and (d) and negative marks for (a) and (b).
- Question 77: On contracts involving minors. The Court disagreed with the High Court’s deletion order, stating that basic logic from the passage supports (b) as the correct answer. “We therefore set aside the direction of the High Court deleting question 77.”
- Question 78: Regarding void agreements. The Court upheld the High Court’s finding that option (c) — agreement to secure a government job by bribery — was correctly identified as void.
- Questions 85 and 88: Since question 85 was already deleted by the Consortium due to errors, the Court ordered that question 88, being similarly flawed, should also be deleted.
- Questions 115 and 116: These were mathematics-based and considered excessively complex. “We direct deletion of 115. Answer to 116 being dependent on 115 also directed to be deleted,” the Court ruled, stating such analysis is unreasonable in an objective law entrance test.
Court’s Broader Observations
The Bench noted that many questions were either flawed, misleading, or overly complex for school-leaving students aged 16–17. Justice Gavai observed, “Are you expecting to compare children with calculator?… 16-17 yrs old girls and boys.”
He also questioned the rationale behind CLAT not being administered by a permanent body like NEET or JEE.
Petitions and Appearances
The matter arose from Special Leave Petitions filed by candidates Siddhi Sandeep Ladda and Aditya Singh. Ladda had secured All India Rank 22 and contended that the High Court’s decision disadvantaged candidates who received Set A of the question paper — the only set for which the High Court did not direct marks to be awarded despite similar errors in other sets.
Senior Advocate K.K. Venugopal appeared for Ladda. The Bench had earlier stayed the Delhi High Court judgment dated April 23, 2025, which was delivered by Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela. Other senior advocates in the case included Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Balbir Singh, and Rajshekhar Rao.
Background
The CLAT-UG 2025 examination, conducted on December 1, 2024, was marred by multiple grievances over incorrect or ambiguous questions. The issue had led to a flurry of litigation, including transfer of petitions from various High Courts to the Delhi High Court. A single judge initially found two errors and ordered corrections for individual petitioners, leading to a broader appeal by the Consortium.
