Rajasthan High Court seeks NLU Consortium's response to plea flagging concerns about CLAT 2025

The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday directed the committee constituted to examine grievances raised by candidates who took the Common Law Admission Test, 2025 (CLAT 2025) to decide on such grievances in a timely manner, ideally before the CLAT results are finalised..Justice Arun Monga also sought the response of the Consortium Of National Law Universities (NLU consortium) to petition filed by various CLAT-UG candidates who have raised various concerns about the exam's conduct and its results. The Court yesterday took note of concerns that students who have raised grievances may be left at a disadvantage if CLAT admissions are hastily concluded before the resolution of such complaints. For instance, candidates may eventually make the cut off for admission to an NLU, but may be ranked lower in the merit list than those who succeed first before the grievance redressal committee.To prevent such anomalies, Justice Arun Monga directed the NLU Consortium to ensure that the grievance redressal process is concluded promptly, and ideally before the finalization and implementation of the overall CLAT results."To prevent anomalies, such as candidates granted admission, without any fault of theirs, being ranked lower in the merit list than those succeeding later before the Committee, it is considered desirable that the committee gives its findings/decision with alacrity in a timely manner. Therefore, the entire grievance redressal process should ideally be completed before the finalization and implementation of the overall results," the Court ordered. .The matter will be heard next on January 8, 2025. The petitioners were represented by advocates LS Udawat and Divik Mathur.The petitioners argued that although a grievance redressal committee, led by a retired High Court judge, was been set up to address alleged irregularities in CLAT 2025, the NLU Consortium has also been rushing to complete the admission process without waiting to resolve pending grievances.They also highlighted that no deadline has been set for submitting or deciding the grievances, which could lead to unfair outcomes - where some candidates may succeed in resolving their grievances later but find themselves ranked below those already admitted, creating an inequitable situation..Meanwhile, a petition has also been filed before the Delhi High Court objecting to certain errors flagged in the final answer key released by the NLU Consortium for the CLAT conducted for undergraduate (UG) law school admissions. This matter will be heard later today (December 19) by Justice Jyoti Singh of the Delhi High Court. Earlier, the Supreme Court had refused to entertain a petition alleging procedural lapses and arbitrary treatment of candidates during the conduct of the CLAT for post-graduate admissions to NLUs. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar instead directed the petitioners to approach the relevant High Court instead of directly approaching the Supreme Court. At the time, the top court also rejected the petitioners' request to stay the admission process until the matter is heard by a High Court..[Read Rajasthan HC Order]