Latest news with #NationalLawUniversities
India Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- India Today
Court orders to fix CLAT PG 2025 answer key, release revised results
The Delhi High Court has asked the consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) to revise the CLAT PG 2025 answer key and release the final results. This came after students filed petitions highlighting errors in the key and demanding fair PG 2025 was conducted on December 1, 2024, and multiple students across the country raised objections regarding the correctness of several answers. After all related pleas were transferred to Delhi by the Supreme Court in February, the High Court has now issued its TO BE RE-EVALUATED FOR TWO QUESTIONSA bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela directed that marks be awarded as per the court's corrections for two questions. However, it rejected challenges to a third question, stating the answer was accurate. The court reviewed each objection in detail before deciding which needed correction. It then directed the consortium to update the answer key accordingly and release the revised results for CLAT PG QUESTIONS RS 1,000 OBJECTION FEEThe bench also flagged concerns about the Rs 1,000 fee charged per question for objections. While it acknowledged the consortium's concern about filtering frivolous claims, it called the fee 'excessive and disproportionate' compared to other court advised the consortium to review this issue with its advisory committee headed by Justice G Raghuram (retd) and take steps to avoid steep charges in future this decision, thousands of law aspirants can now expect their corrected results soon -- possibly giving some a fairer shot at admissions into top NLUs.(With PTI inputs)
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Delhi high court orders revised results for CLAT PG-2025
The Delhi high court on Friday directed the consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) to release revised results for this year's Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) postgraduate (PG) exam, awarding marks to all candidates for two disputed questions deemed incorrect in the official answer key. A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela ruled that the consortium's answers for two of the three contested questions were erroneous and directed that marks be given to all test-takers, who opted for the answer deemed correct by the court. Initially, petitioners had challenged eight questions, but the Consortium withdrew four during an April meeting. After the verdict was reserved, it also agreed to withdraw a fifth question due to a discrepancy between the test booklet and the master key. That left three questions for the court to decide. In its 18-page judgment, the court refused to quash the ₹1,000 fee charged for objecting to the provisional answer key but urged the Consortium to reconsider the amount for future exams. 'While the fee is meant to deter frivolous challenges, particularly by coaching institutes, it appears excessive compared to other national-level institutions,' the court noted. The court stopped short of ordering a refund, saying most candidates had already paid the amount and retrospective relief could trigger further litigation. It asked the Consortium to refer the matter to its grievance redressal committee. The petitions reached the Delhi high court after the Supreme Court, on February 6, transferred all cases pending in other high courts to avoid conflicting rulings. These included challenges to the CLAT UG and PG results declared on December 7, 2024. The CLAT answer key has come under legal scrutiny since a Delhi high court order in December 2024, in a case filed by a UG candidate. On April 23, the Delhi high court had ordered revised UG results, but the Supreme Court stayed that directive on April 30. On May 7, the top court criticised the Consortium for framing questions 'casually' and for answers that contradicted Supreme Court rulings. It ordered revisions to the evaluation of six UG questions. The final answer key was amended on May 17, reducing the total marks to 113. UG counselling began the same day.
The Hindu
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Delhi HC grants partial relief to students in CLAT-PG answer key dispute
The Delhi High Court on Friday provided partial relief to candidates who had citing discrepancies in a few questions in the final answer key of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)-PG 2025. While disposing of three petitions by students seeking rectification of alleged errors in the answer key, the court ruled in favour of the students in two questions and upheld the Consortium of National Law Universities' (NLUs) stance on a third. It directed the Consortium to revise the scoring accordingly and declare the results. The students had also challenged the fee for raising objections to the provisional answer key — ₹1,000 per question — terming it excessive, and sought a direction to the Consortium to reconsider it. The court observed that there should be a 'fine balance' between the concerns of the candidates and the institutions, and said that its observation should be sufficient for the Consortium to take appropriate steps to 'avoid such excessive fee in the next examinations'. CLAT determines admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate law courses in National Law Universities in the country. CLAT-PG 2025 was held on December 1, 2024. Multiple pleas were filed in different High Courts alleging several questions in the exam were wrong. On February 6, the Supreme Court transferred all the petitions over the issue to the Delhi High Court for a 'consistent adjudication'.
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
CLAT-PG 2025 answer key row: Delhi HC orders revised results soon
The Delhi high court on Friday granted relief to postgraduate (PG) candidates of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) over alleged errors in the answer keys released by the National Law Universities (consortium), and directed the consortium to expeditiously declare revised results of this year's courses. Dealing with a batch of pleas challenging the CLAT PG results – declared on December 7 – a bench of chief justice DK Upadhyay and justice Tushar Rao Gedela rejected the answers of two out of the three disputed questions released by the consortium and upheld the answer of one. To be sure, initially the three pleas filed by the candidates challenged eight questions but the consortium, in its meeting held in April, withdrew four. However, pursuant to court reserving the verdict, the consortium informed the high court about withdrawing another question after the candidate's lawyer pointed out that the correct option published in the question paper distributed to candidates was different from the option given in the master booklet made by the consortium. With this withdrawal, the court only had to adjudicate on three disputed questions. In its ruling, though the court refused to quash the levy of ₹1,000 fee for raising objection to the answer key, it directed the consortium to consider revising the fees in the future examination and asked it to place the matter before its grievance redressal committee headed by former judge and National Judicial Academy director G Raghuram. 'There has to be a fine balance which needs to be resolved between two sets of, what appears to be, genuine grievances. On one hand, while comparing the fee charged for objected questions by other organisations/institutions of national level with that charged by the consortium appears to be excessive and disproportionate, while appreciating the concerns of the consortium which too does not appear to be fanciful or imaginative, rather appears to be a measure which may be required in order to keep frivolous individuals and more so, the coaching institutes at bay. It would also be relevant to note that the time and efforts spent and made by the subject matter experts or the oversight review committee and the consortium as a whole in resolving these objections, in case they are in large number, frivolous, may entail huge, unnecessary and avoidable delay and/or protraction of the admission process, affecting or impacting the academic schedule too,' the court order read. It added, 'Notwithstanding the above observations, and keeping in mind that most of the candidates have already paid such fees, quashing such levy at this point in time may entail obstacles which may be unnecessary and may result in litigations which are not required. However, 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 petitions came up for hearing before the high court after the Supreme Court transferred various pleas challenging UG and PG CLAT results, declared on December 7, before multiple high courts, including the Delhi HC. To avoid conflicting rulings, a bench led by former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan on February 6 transferred pleas pending before various HCs, including those of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Calcutta, Bombay, Punjab & Haryana, to Delhi. On April 23, the Delhi HC bench led by chief justice DK Upadhyay directed the NLU consortium to publish within four weeks the revised UG results by updating the mark sheet and re-notifying the final list of selected candidates, which was then stayed by the Supreme Court on April 30. On May 7, the Supreme Court pulled up the consortium for setting questions in the most 'casual manner', and directed changes in the marking pattern of six questions. The bench noted that in some questions, the answer key issued by the consortium was contrary to past Supreme Court judgments and in one question, the answer required students to make calculations that could not be expected in an objective test on legal reasoning. Following the Supreme Court's order, the consortium on May 17 modified the final answer key by withdrawing five questions in Logical Reasoning and two questions in Quantitative Techniques. 'Accordingly, the evaluation of candidates for the CLAT 2025 UG shall be out of 113 marks instead of the originally announced 120 marks,' the notification stated. The registration for the counselling commenced from May 17. The high court's ruling, will have a significant impact on more than 10,000 students who had appeared for the CLAT PG examination and also fast track the admissions, the process of which was halted in light of the petitions. The counselling was initially scheduled to begin in December.
Indian Express
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
CLAT results out finally: Why they were delayed for 5 months, what SC has said now
Over five months after the exam was held following a bunch of court cases, Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) results for undergraduate courses were revised and declared on Saturday (May 17). The counselling and seat allotment process will now begin, five months behind the original schedule. The first seat allotment list, which was supposed to have been out on December 26 last year, will now be published on May 26. CLAT scores are used for admissions to the National Law Universities (NLUs). The exam is conducted by the Consortium of National Law Universities, which has the participating NLUs as its members. The first edition of CLAT was conducted in 2008. This year, CLAT, which was held on December 1, 2024, faced court cases over a few questions asked in the exam and the correct answers to them. The matter has drawn attention to the framing of questions and the conduct of the exam, with the Supreme Court expressing 'deep anguish' in a judgement earlier this month 'regarding the callous and casual manner in which' the Consortium of NLUs has been framing questions for CLAT, 'an examination on the basis of which meritorious candidates get entry into the prestigious National Law Universities across the country.' In a petition before the Delhi High Court in December last year, a candidate had challenged the answer key that the consortium declared for CLAT, citing errors in five answers, and alleging that he lost marks because of the errors. The counsel for the NLU Consortium told the court that it had invited candidates to file their objections to the answer key, and received a total of 5,250 such objections, for 93 out of the 120 questions. It constituted an expert committee and then an oversight committee to review these objections, and four questions were withdrawn (where no option presented in the paper was found to be correct) and answers to three modified. Referring to an error in a question as pointed out by the candidate, a judgement, dated December 20, by a single judge of the Delhi HC, had asked the consortium to revise the results. A set of petitions filed across different High Courts challenging certain questions in the exam, along with appeals against the judgement of the single judge, were transferred to a Division Bench of the Delhi HC by the Supreme Court in February this year. In a judgement pronounced in April, the Delhi HC noted that 'in this piquant situation, this Court is examining each and every question objected to by the candidates'. It considered 17 questions and their answers, and rejected objections to some questions, maintained a 'hands-off' approach in some, and then asked the consortium to revise the results after its counsel admitted to errors in certain questions. A candidate with rank 22 then filed a petition in the Supreme Court against this judgement of the HC, stating that candidates who received 'set A' of the question paper were at a disadvantage, since the error in a question was recorded in sets B, C and D. For CLAT, all four sets of the question paper have the same questions, but in different order. What has the Supreme Court said in the matter? In its judgement this month, the SC said: '…we must state that in academic matters, the Courts are generally reluctant to interfere, in as much 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.' The SC judgement dealt with six questions that were the subject of appeals filed before it. For instance, in one question candidates were asked to answer what the wages paid to women working in the agricultural sector in Goa would be if men are paid Rs 335 on average. The SC judgement noted that to answer the question, 'the candidates will have to undergo a detailed mathematics analysis, which is not expected in an objective test,' and asked the consortium to delete the question. It also directed that the question that had an error in sets B, C and D of the question paper be withdrawn across all sets. Thus, modifying the order of the Delhi HC, the Supreme Court said the results should be revised and counselling should begin within two weeks. What has happened in similar instances in the past? This isn't the first time CLAT is being brought before the courts. In its judgement on the exam this year, the Supreme Court pointed to two instances. One was a set of petitions in 2018 which highlighted the 'improper conduct' of CLAT 2018 (issues at exam centres including login failures, registered answers disappearing, and questions not being fully visible). The SC had asked the then Ministry of Human Resource Development to appoint a committee to look into the matter, and had noted that the idea of a different law university monitoring the conduct of the exam each year 'needs to be revisited.' The second instance was a petition filed by legal scholar Shamnad Basheer in 2015. Noting that Basheer, the sole petitioner in the matter, has passed away, the SC judgement this month said: 'We shall, accordingly, after dealing with the present matter pass an appropriate order in this regard.' Basheer's petition had said that 'despite the growing popularity of CLAT, its planning and execution over the years has been marred with serious institutional lapses and inefficiencies, such as arbitrary and sub-standard question papers, incorrect questions and answers, questions that have no reasonable nexus to one's aptitude for the study of law, wrongful allotments of seats, unnecessary delays…'. The petition had called for a permanent body to conduct CLAT, institutional reforms, and an expert committee to examine the conduct of the exam. The Consortium of NLUs was set up in 2017, and it monitors the conduct of the exam for UG and PG programmes.
