The Supreme Court on Thursday (February 6, 2025) ordered petitions pending in various High Courts challenging the results of Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2025 to a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court for expeditious disposal.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan also directed all High Courts where petitions are pending against the exam results to send them to Delhi High Court within seven days of the publication of the copy of this transfer order from the Supreme Court.
CLAT is a national-level entrance exam for admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate law programmes offered by 24 National Law Universities in the country. Exam is organised by the Consortium of National Law Universities (CNLU), comprising representative universities.
The various High Courts hearing challenges to the CLAT 2025 results, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, include Karnataka, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh, Calcutta and Punjab and Haryana. A Single Judge of the Delhi High Court had found two of the answers in the CLAT-UG exam wrong in an order in December last year. The Consortium of National Law Universities (CNLU) has appealed the Single Judge decision before a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court. All the cases from the other High Courts would be placed before the same Division Bench of the Delhi High Court.
The CNLU had initially approached the apex court seeking to transfer the various petitions in the High Courts to the Supreme Court for an authoritative pronouncement. It had submitted that uncertainty over the results was delaying the admission process.
On January 15, Chief Justice Khanna had refused to shift the case to the apex court. The top court had, instead, suggested transferring and clubbing the cases together in one High Court.
On Thursday Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CNLU, suggested the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which has a high case disposal rate, or the Karnataka High Court.
The Chief Justice Bench finally decided on the Delhi High Court, saying the case records from other High Courts have to be transferred to the national capital expeditiously.
In January, the Chief Justice had remarked that “the courts will not interfere unless the answers are clearly wrong”.
