The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) to take steps to avoid charging "excessive" fees for filing objections to exam questions in future CLAT exams.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela passed this direction while disposing of petitions challenging the results of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) PG 2025 conducted on December 1, 2024. The petitions were filed by candidates Anam Khan, Nitika, and Ayush Agrawal.
The court ruled in favour of the petitioners on two questions and in favour of the Consortium on one question. It instructed the Consortium to award marks accordingly.
“We expect that the aforesaid observations would be sufficient for the Consortium to take heed of and take appropriate steps to avoid such excessive fee in the next examinations, scheduled for the following years,” the court said.
While the court did not quash the fee for the current session, it cautioned that doing so might cause avoidable complications and unnecessary litigation.
“It would be advisable for the Consortium to place the said issue before the committee headed by Justice G. Raghuram (Retd.) for his valuable opinion,” the bench added.
The bench further directed the Consortium to comply with these directions immediately and release the revised results without delay.
“In that view of the matter, we dispose of the writ petitions without any order as to costs directing the Consortium to comply with the aforesaid directions forthwith and declare the results with expedition,” the judgment concluded.
The CLAT PG 2025 exam, held on December 1, 2024, had faced criticism over multiple questions. The Consortium had already revised the results of the CLAT-UG 2025 exam earlier due to similar objections.
A single judge had previously ruled that two answers in the CLAT-UG 2025 exam were incorrect and directed a revision of results for the petitioners. The Consortium challenged that order before a division bench.
On April 23, the division bench led by Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya modified the earlier decision and gave certain directions. Later, on May 7, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court’s order and instructed the Consortium to make further corrections, after which the results were revised.
Title: Anam Khan v. Consortium of National Law Universities and other connected matters