The Court clarified that the case will be divided into two groups — one for undergraduate admissions (CLAT UG) and the other for postgraduate admissions (CLAT PG). Both types of petitions will be heard together to avoid separate decisions.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday, 3rd March, gave two weeks’ time to the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) to file its reply to a group of petitions challenging the CLAT 2025 exam results. The CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) is conducted for admissions to NLUs across the country.
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A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said that the matter will be heard as soon as possible because students are anxious about the uncertainty.
“We can hear the matter in two batches. There is a lot of anxiety among the students, who are young. Their board examinations are going on. Because of this uncertainty, there is a lot of stress … Let them (NLU Consortium) file the (reply) affidavit. We just want to facilitate as to how early and how smoothly the proceedings can start,” said Chief Justice Upadhyaya.
The Court clarified that the case will be divided into two groups — one for undergraduate admissions (CLAT UG) and the other for postgraduate admissions (CLAT PG). Both types of petitions will be heard together to avoid separate decisions.
The Court also said that it will not allow the same arguments to be repeated by multiple petitioners.
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“We cannot allow all of you to argue, there will be duplicity. We can appoint a nodal counsel,” Justice Gedela stated.
Chief Justice Upadhyaya added,
“We will nominate one nodal counsel who will do it (make arguments) in consultation of all of you. Consortium (of NLUs) states that it would file its compilation responding to all the petitions.”
The Consortium’s lawyer suggested that two nodal counsels should be appointed — one for CLAT UG and the other for CLAT PG matters. The Court agreed to this idea and asked the Consortium to submit a note dividing the petitions accordingly.
The next hearing will take place on April 7, 2025.
The Delhi High Court is hearing the matter because the Supreme Court had recently transferred all CLAT 2025-related cases to one court. This was done to avoid different High Courts giving conflicting judgments on the same issue.
The Delhi High Court directed its registry to give copies of the petitions to the NLU Consortium within three days.
“We also direct the registry to ensure that the copy of the petitions is served to the NLU Consortium in three days. In case any other writ petition is received from any other High Court, then that matter would also be served to the Consortium within 2 days of being received,”
the Court stated.
Earlier, on December 20, 2024, Justice Jyoti Singh of the Delhi High Court partly allowed a petition by a 17-year-old candidate, Aditya Singh. He had complained of errors in the CLAT UG paper.
The judge found that two out of five questions pointed out by the candidate had clear mistakes. The Court ordered the NLU Consortium to declare revised results by giving marks for those two questions.
However, the NLU Consortium challenged this ruling before a Division Bench, saying that the judge acted like an expert. The candidate also filed an appeal, asking for further revision of his result.
Meanwhile, other petitions were filed in the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Bombay High Court, and other High Courts.
To avoid different High Courts deciding the same issue, the Supreme Court transferred all these petitions to the Delhi High Court on February 6, 2025.
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