After three consecutive days of hearing, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on the batch of cases highlighting errors in this year's Common Law Admission Test (CLAT 2025) undergraduate (UG) exam..A bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela heard objections raised by each petitioner and enquired if they were raised with the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs), which conducts CLAT, within the 24-hour timeline given for filing objections..In today's hearing, a candidate appeared before Court through virtual mode to argue his case himself. He alleged that the legal reasoning passage questions on Contract Law were out of syllabus since they would require the candidate to have prior knowledge of legal terms such as void/voidable agreements, consideration, etc.The Chief Justice said to the Consortium,"You are testing legal understanding of a Class 12th student. He would not know consideration. This is for the experts to decide, but I don't know. Will it be possible for a Class 12 student to know the meaning of consideration under Contract Law?.Further, the Court segregated two petitions from the UG batch matters, directing that they would be heard separately.One matters pertains to an incident where the invigilator did not allow the candidate to underline on the question paper during the examination. It was submitted that this incident impacted the candidate's focus and wasted her time.The Court asked Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao, appearing for the Consortium of NLUs, if any steps were taken by its grievance redressal committee regarding the incident. Rao accepted, "We should have been more proactive. Our training has to get better."Justice Gedela directed the Consortium to file an additional affidavit regarding its findings pertaining to the incident within two weeks.The other matter that has been segregated is regarding a candidate seeking a change from general category to reserved category..With respect to the batch of matters pertaining to the postgraduate (PG) exam, the Court will commence hearings on April 21..In yesterday's hearing, the Court had expressed its concerns regarding legal experts setting questions that test logical reasoning and quantitative aptitude. "You say questions are made by experts. For legal questions, GK, we understand. For logical and quantitative questions, they are part of maths, you do not teach maths. Then who sets these questions?"The Court urged the Consortium to have more appropriate paper-setters in future. "Just a thought, you may convey. These are some of the issues Consortium can consider," the Chief Justice had stated. The Court was told that on some questions, there was a conflict of opinion between subject matter experts and the Oversight Committee formed to assess the questions. Rao said, "At times, examiners can also go wrong. We are dealing with lives of young minds, we have to be more circumspect. We are conscious.".The Court is seized of a batch of matters related to the CLAT 2025 exams after the Supreme Court ordered their transfer.On December 20, 2024, single-judge Justice Jyoti Singh partly allowed a plea filed by a 17-year-old CLAT candidate Aditya Singh, regarding certain errors alleged in the CLAT UG paper.This ruling was challenged before a division bench of the High Court, with the NLU Consortium contending that the single-judge had wrongly donned the hat of an expert. The CLAT candidate also filed an appeal before the division bench, seeking a further revision of his result. Later, the NLU Consortium moved the Supreme Court seeking a transfer of the matter to the top court. Petitions challenging the CLAT results were under challenge before the Madhya Pradesh High Court and the Bombay High Court, among other High Courts. To avoid such parallel proceedings, the NLU Consortium urged the Supreme Court to transfer the case to a single court. In view of such concerns, the Supreme Court on February 6 ordered the transfer of all CLAT-related cases to the Delhi High Court..[Read live coverage today]
