CLAT UG 2025: Supreme Court slams NLU Consortium; changes HC order on erroneous questions

The Supreme Court on Wednesday slammed the Consortium of National Law Universities (Consortium of NLUs) for the casual manner in which it has been framing questions for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and conducting the exam..A Bench of Justices BR Gavai and Augustine George Masih noted that despite a 2018 judgment of the Court on the issue, no further steps have been taken by the Central government or the Bar Council of India (BCI) to redress the issues plaguing the law entrance test."We must express our anguish at the casual manner in which the Consortium has been framing questions for CLAT exams which involves career aspirations of lakhs of students. In academic matters court is always slow to intervene since they are not an expert. But when academicians themselves err in such manner which impacts lakhs of students, court is left with no opportunity but to intervene," the Court said.Therefore, it proceeded to issue notice to the Union Ministry of Education and sought its response to streamline the exam and address the issues surrounding the same. .Pertinently, it made wholesale changes to the Delhi High Court directions on the four erroneous questions in this year's Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for undergraduate (UG) courses (CLAT UG 2025).The Delhi High Court had ruled on April 23 that there were errors in four questions and answers in this year's CLAT for UG courses.Therefore, it had ordered the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) to revise the marksheets of the candidates and publish/renotify the final list of selected candidates within four weeks.However, the top court today made the following changes to the High Court's order with regard to the erroneous questions:.Question no. 56 of master booklet: The Delhi High Court had refused to interfere with this question which was about the fundamental duty to protect the environment.However, the Supreme Court said that the same needs interference. It said duty to protect environment is on both State and citizens and that answers C and D to that question are correct. Those who wrote A or B should be given negative marks, the Court ordered."Thus we direct all students to be given marks for C and D. All who attempted answer A or B be given negative marks," the order said..Question no. 77 of master booklet: The Delhi High Court had held that said question was out of syllabus and should be excluded and treated as withdrawn. Students who marked the correct answer will lose their mark, and the students who marked the wrong answer would gain 0.25 marks that they lost by negative marking, the High Court had directed.However, the Supreme Court noted that some respondents have stated that without prior legal knowledge the said question cannot be opted correctly. "It is seen that if a student applies reason and logic, it can be found out what is void contract, what is voidable contract," the top court said. Hence, Answer B is the correct answer to the question and consortium should give marks to those students who have selected option B, the Supreme Court said..Question 115 of master booklet: The High Court had held that the answer in option (d), “None of these” is the correct answer and all candidates who attempted this question will get full marks.However, the Supreme Court held that for answering the question 115, the candidate has to undergo a detailed mathematical analysis which is not expected in an objective test. Thus, it directed deletion of question 115..Question 116 of master booklet: The High Court had held that all the candidates who participated in CLAT UG 2025 with respect to the Sets B, C & D of question papers shall be granted the marks indicated against the said question. Since Set A did not have this error, the High Court deemed it fit not to interfere with the marks obtained by all those candidates who answered correctly.However, the Supreme Court held that question 116 is dependent on information in 115 and thus directed the same to be deleted."Thus we set aside HC direction to give marks to all students who attempted 115 and 116. We find that on account of confusion in material, many have not answered the said question. Thus, we direct deletions of both questions 115 and 116," the Supreme Court ordered..(Read Order).Senior Advocates KK Venugopal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Deepak Nargolkar and advocate Shoumik Ghoshal appeared for the petitioner..The Court was hearing a plea filed by a candidate Siddhi Sandeep Landa who claimed that she and other candidates who had received question paper set 'A' will be unfairly affected by the High Court order.Landa had secured rank 22 in the initial list."Due to impugned judgment the applicant and other students that received “Question Paper Set A” are being put at an unfair disadvantage as compared to similarly placed students receiving “Question Paper Set B, C and D.Students like the petitioner who received “Question Paper Set A” will not receive marks for a question not attempted. While, those in Sets B, C, and D were granted marks by the impugned judgement irrespective of effort or attempt, compounding the inequity, thereby robbing the petitioner and other Set A students of a level playing field," the plea claimed..The Delhi High Court had ruled on April 23 that there were errors in four questions and answers in this year's CLAT for UG courses.Therefore, it had ordered the Consortium of NLUs to revise the marksheets of the candidates and publish/renotify the final list of selected candidates within four weeks..The Consortium was represented by Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao and briefed by Keystone Partners.Intervenors were represented by Senior Advocate Balbir Singh and briefed by MP Devnath, Abhishek Anand and Rahul Kumar of Sarvada Legal..The High Court judgment was passed in a batch of petitions related to the CLAT 2025 exams after the Supreme Court ordered their transfer from various High Courts to the Delhi High Court..[Read Live Coverage].Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.