Intend to complete CLAT UG hearing at earliest for results to be declared: Delhi HC

NEW DELHI : The Delhi High Court on Monday began hearing a batch of petitions, transferred to it from the various high courts, over certain errors in the CLAT-2025 questionnaire, and said "suspense and anxiety" were not good for the aspirants. A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said it intended to complete hearing on the petitions at the earliest for the results to be declared. There was an urgency in the petitions concerning the undergraduate examinations and the petitions for post graduate course would be taken up separately, it added.

"There is urgency as far as UG is concerned. What we propose is we could complete the hearing at the earliest so that results are declared. UG may start," the court said. The bench went on, "There has been so much suspense, anxiety. That we want to avoid. That is not good for the students. we can start the hearing." The court heard the counsel appearing for the Consortium of National Law Universities (CNLUs) for some time and said it would continue hearing the matter on April 8.

The common law admission test (CLAT), 2025, held in December last year, determines admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate law courses in national law universities in the country. 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”. The top court passed the direction on the transfer petitions of CNLUs.

Several students wanted the cases to be transferred to the Delhi High Court, saying it passed a favourable order for some petitioners by identifying errors in two questions of the CLAT-UG 2025 exam and directing the consortium to revise their results. On December 20, 2024, a Delhi High Court's single judge directed the consortium to revise the result of CLAT-2025 over the errors in the answer key. The single judge’s verdict, which came on the plea of a CLAT aspirant, ruled the answers to two questions in the entrance test were wrong.

CLAT 2025 result, answer key

The plea challenged the answer key published by the consortium on December 7, 2024 while seeking a direction to declare correct answers to certain questions. The single judge said the errors were “demonstrably clear” and “shutting a blind eye” would amount to injustice. While the aspirant challenged the single judge’s order which refused his prayer over the other two questions, the consortium also moved the division bench of the Delhi high court against the single judge’s decision.

On December 24, 2024, the division bench refused to pass any interim order after prima facie finding no error with the single judge’s order over the two questions and said the consortium was free to declare the results in terms of the judge’s decision. The CLAT, 2025 for admissions in five-year LLB courses in NLUs was held on December 1 and results were declared on December 7, 2024.