New Delhi, Dec 8
The Supreme Court is slated to hear on Monday a plea challenging the "procedural lapses" and "unequal treatment of candidates" during the conduct of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2025, the entrance examination for admission to 5-year integrated LL.B. and LL.M.
programmes at National Law Universities (NLUs). As per the causelist published on the website of the apex court, a bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar will take up the matter for hearing on December 9.
The plea said that the sealed envelopes were given to the candidates at 1.50 p.m. at an examination centre while at another centre, such envelopes were given only after 2 p.m.
"Since any candidate would require a few minutes to mention his/her Admit Card Number as well as Question Booklet Number and fill appropriate circles adjoining those numeric values, therefore, the candidates were not treated equally at all the centres due to procedural lapses in following the instructions for invigilators across different centres," it said.
Further, the petition claimed a violation of the right to education guaranteed under Article 21A and the right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution of India due to non-application of mind in releasing the wrong provisional answer key. It stated that releasing an incorrect provisional answer key for nearly 12 questions shows nothing but a lackadaisical attitude in the conduct of the examination by the Consortium of NLUs.
It also said that petitioners' right to education was violated by the Consortium of NLUs due to exorbitant fees charged for the examination and for raising objections, adding that due to an arbitrary and minuscule window for challenging the final answer key before publication of CLAT 2025 results and registration for admission counselling. The plea stated that even after charging an exorbitant fee of Rs 4,000 towards the examination fees, the Consortium accepted objections only upon payment of Rs 1,000 per objection.
"That there is no rationale in charging such an exorbitant fee towards objections which are filed by a candidate due to the mistake on the part of the consortium itself in releasing the wrong provisional answer key," the petition said. It added that the right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution was violated by the Consortium of NLUs due to a lack of compliance by the invigilators in following the Test Day Instructions to the candidates.