SC mulls transferring CLAT 2025 pleas to single high court amid growing controversy

The Supreme Court on Jan 15 said it may consider transferring to one of the high courts the various pleas filed against the results of the common law admission test 2025.

Several petitions are pending in several high courts, including Delhi and Karnataka, on the allegations that several questions in the CLAT, 2025 were wrong.

Issuing notices to lawyers appearing for parties in various high courts, a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said that it was in favor of sending the cases to one high court, preferably the Punjab and Haryana High Court, for an authoritative judgement on the row.

The bench has now posted the transfer pleas of the Consortium of National Law Universities (CNLUs) on the alleged row over the common law admission test (CLAT), 2025 in the week commencing February 3.

“The writ petition pending in different high courts should be dealt with one high court. As it would be expeditious, issue notice returnable in the week commencing February 3, 2025. Notices will be served to the counsels appearing for the petitioners before different high courts. The bench is of the view that the matter can be transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court,” the bench said.

The CNLUs, which filed the plea through advocate Pritha Srikumar Iyer, was represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

An aspirant recently informed a Delhi High Court division bench that several petitions were pending in different high courts and the transfer pleas would be moved before the top court.

The high court then posted the pleas, filed against the order of a single judge bench, for hearing on January 30.

On December 20, 2024, a Delhi High Court single judge directed the consortium to revise the result of CLAT-2025 over 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.

The plea had 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 to them" would amount to injustice.

While the aspirant challenged the single judge's order which refused his prayer over the other two questions, the consortium moved against the single judge's decision.

On December 24, 2024, a division bench hearing the challenges 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.

(PTI)