Supreme Court asks why permanent mechanism cannot be put in place to conduct CLAT like NEET-OxBig News Network

CLAT involves the career aspirations of lakhs of students across the country, a Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice A.G. Masih observed.
| Photo Credit: ANI

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (May 7, 2025), expressing strong displeasure at “error-riddled questions” in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2025, voiced the need for a “permanent mechanism” for conducting the annual law entrance examination, similar to the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) for medical admissions.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) conducts NEET, while CLAT, a national-level entrance exam for undergraduate and postgraduate law programmes offered by 24 National Law Universities (NLUs), is currently organised by the Consortium of National Law Universities (CNLU), with member universities conducting it on a rotational basis. The questions are purportedly framed by senior academicians in the legal field.

“But is this the sort of Consortium you have? With all these learned Vice-Chancellors sitting together, calling themselves academicians of the highest repute… Why don’t you have a permanent mechanism like in the NEET? CLAT involves the career aspirations of lakhs of students across the country,” a Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice A.G. Masih observed.

The court conveyed its anguish at the “casual manner” in which the CNLU had framed questions for CLAT 2025. Pointing to a question regarding responsibility for protecting natural resources, Justice Gavai said the suggested answer, that the state held sole responsibility, was “totally wrong.” “It is the state as well as the citizens. We have said this in several of our judgments,” the judge noted.

The Supreme Court issued notice to the Union Ministry of Education (formerly Ministry of Human Resource Development) regarding the persistent for years problems affecting CLAT.

The Bench highlighted that neither the Centre nor the Bar Council of India (BCI) had implemented remedial measures following a 2018 Supreme Court judgment that had flagged numerous issues with CLAT. Among noted errors were included inadequate arrangements, the yearly rotation of monitoring responsibilities among different universities, and excessive examination fees. The court in 2018 had directed the Centre to appoint a committee to investigate these issues and recommend corrective actions, including potential penal measures against CLAT organisers.

The current legal dispute had delayed the CLAT 2025 counselling process, originally scheduled to commence on December 9, 2024.

The hearing stemmed from a petition by Siddhi Sandeep Ladda, who secured All India Rank 22 with Set A paper of the exam. Ms. Ladda challenged a Delhi High Court order of April 23, 2025, which had directed a revision and republication of the CLAT merit list within four weeks due to erroneous questions and answer keys. Ms. Ladda contended that the High Court’s order would disrupt the level playing field, as students who received other exam sets might be unfairly awarded grace marks.

During the hearing, the Justice Gavai Bench itself identified six erroneous questions in the CLAT 2025 paper. The apex court subsequently awarded marks to students for attempts at certain questions while deleting others.

Furthermore, the court took suo motu cognisance of a petition filed by the late legal academician, Professor Shamnad Basheer. Prof. Basheer had consistently highlighted recurrent mistakes in CLAT question papers and had advocated for an “independent, professional and permanent body” to conduct the examination.

The Supreme Court scheduled the next hearing in the matter for Friday, May 9, 2025.