Criticizing the NLU Consortium for the casual approach adopted in framing questions for the Common Law Admission Test, the Supreme Court has directed the republication of the final list of candidates of CLAT UG-2025.

The Apex Court also asked the Consortium to revise the marksheet, re-notify the final list of candidates and commence with the counselling within 2 weeks.

The appeals before the Apex Court were filed against the judgment and final order of a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court.

The Division Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih said, “At the outset, we must express our deep anguish regarding the callous and casual manner in which the Respondent No.1 has been framing questions for the Common Law Admission Test (hereinafter referred to as, “CLAT”), an examination on the basis of which meritorious candidates get entry into the prestigious National Law Universities across the country.”

“Insofar as the present appeals are concerned, at the outset, we must state that in academic matters, the Courts are generally reluctant to interfere, inasmuch as they do not possess the requisite expertise for the same. However, when the academicians themselves act in a manner that adversely affects the career aspirations of lakhs of students, the Court is left with no alternative but to interfere”, it added.

Senior Advocate K K Venugopal represented the Appellant, while Senior Advocate Raj Shekhar Rao represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

As per the impugned judgment and final order of the Division Bench of the High Court, several questions and the answers thereto were found to be not suitable. The High Court had, therefore, passed an order concerning various questions. However, the Apex Court was concerned with Questions 56, 77, 78, 88, 115 and 116.

Reasoning

The Bench held that the candidates should be given positive marks for a question on the fundamental duty to preserve natural resources. On a question pertaining to contracts & agreements, the Bench noted that even without having any prior knowledge of law, upon appreciation of the material provided and by applying logic and reason, a candidate could arrive at the answer to such a question. The Bench also directed the deletion of Question No. 88

“We, however, on a perusal of the material provided, find that for answering Question No. 115, the candidates will have to undergo a detailed mathematics analysis, which is not expected in an objective test”, it said.

The Bench set aside the direction issued by the Division Bench of the High Court qua Question No. 115 and further directed deletion of the same. The Bench also ordered, “We find that in order to put all the candidates on equal footing, Question No. 116 be deleted from all the Sets as well.” Setting aside the direction of the Division Bench of the High Court qua Question No. 116, the Bench directed the Respondent to delete Question No. 116.

Thus, disposing of the appeals and all the intervention/impleadment applications, the Bench directed the first Respondent- Consortium to amend the answer key, revise the marksheet and re-publish/notify the final list of candidates forthwith and commence with the counselling within 2 weeks.

Cause Title: Siddhi Sandeep Ladda v. Consortium of National Law Universities (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 714)

Appearance:

Appellant: Senior Advocates K K Venugopal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Deepak Nargolkar, AOR Soumik Ghosal, Advocates Siddhant Kohli, Vishal Sinha, Samruthi Gangadhar, Gaurav Singh, Ashutosh Chaturvedi, Dhanesh Relan, AOR Krishan Kumar, Advocates Nitin Pal, Harsh Kumar Singh

Respondent: Senior Advocates Raj Shekhar Rao, Balbir Singh, AOR Pritha Srikumar Iyer, Advocates Arun Sri Kumar, Shubhansh Thakur, Wamic Wasim, AOR Anurag, Advocates Hanuman Singh, Abhishek Anand, Rahul Kumar, AOR M. P. Devanath, Advocate Sameer Rohatgi, AOR Namat Suri, Advocate Kartikey Singh, AOR Udhyam Mukherjee

Click here to read/download Judgment







CJI BR GavaiJustice Augustine George Masih

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.