The Supreme Court today (December 9) refused to entertain a plea challenging the CLAT-PG 2025 Results. The Court however granted liberty to the petitioners to move the High Court.
The bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar was hearing a petition challenging the provisional answer key released for the recently held Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for PG admissions.
The CJI seemingly declined to issue a notice in the matter, noted that the Apex Court cannot be made the Court of first instance and the petitioners should first move the High Court. He also flagged how intervention by the Top Court has led to immense delays in the release of exam results.
“We cannot be court of first instance…We have on enough occasions said this..We have some judgments which say that due to OMR sheets, results are delayed by 8 years…go to the HC please,” CJi said.
The bench dismissed the petition while granting liberty to the petitioner to approach the High Court for appropriate remedy :
“We are not inclined to intervene in the said petition, the petitioner is given liberty to approach the HC”
On the challenge to the fees of Rs. 1000/- charged per objection raised, the CJI remarked, “1000 Rs per objection is not a big deal, do you know how much expenditure is incurred?”
The petitioners, who appeared in the exam for LLM admissions in National Law Universities, allege various lapses in the conduct of the CLAT 2025 exam held by the Consortium of National Law Universities on December 1. They allege that the provisional answer key released on December 2 has various errors and as many as 12 questions have been given wrong answers. The petitioners state that only a day was given to the candidates to raise objections to the provisional answer key and the online portal was closed on December 3 at 4 PM.
The final answer key is scheduled to be published on December 9 and the results are to be announced on December 10.
Against this backdrop, the petitioners seek a stay on the publication of the CLAT 2025 results and the counseling for admissions on that basis. They also take objection to the condition that a candidate has to pay Rs.12,000/- to raise objections to the 12 answers. “It is submitted that even after charging an exorbitant fee of Rs.4,000/- (Rupees Four Thousand Only) towards the examination fees, the Consortium accepted objections only upon payment of Rs.1,000/- (Rupees One Thousand Only) per objection,” the petition stated.
The petitioners also claim that they were not given equal treatment as they were given the sealed envelop having QB and OMR Response Sheet only after 2:00 PM, though it was supposed to be given to candidates at 1.50 PM.
The petitioners contend that their fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 21A have been violated due to the improper conduct of the CLAT exam.
The petition has been filed by Anam Khan and Ayush Agarwal. The petitioners are represented by Advocates Manasi Bhushan, Shakshi Sharma, Sanjana Patel, Akshit Chaudhary, Chetan, and Ankit Chaturvedi (AOR).