In a significant order on Tuesday, the Allahabad High Court has directed the Consortium of National Law Universities to revise the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT UG) 2026 merit list while hearing a petition by a law aspirant challenging the rejection of a few answers.
The order was passed by a bench of Justice Vivek Saran on Tuesday after it found that the Oversight Committee had overruled an Expert Committee comprising subject experts with regard to a disputed question without assigning any reason.
The aspirant, a minor, had appeared for the exam on December 7 last year in Ghaziabad.
The candidate, through his counsel, challenged the evaluation of three questions of Test Booklet C (6, 9 and 13), corresponding to question nos. 88, 91 and 95, respectively in Master Booklet-A. According to his understanding, the answers marked by him were correct but they were not evaluated correctly.
He then submitted a detailed objection via the online portal and paid the requisite fee. However, when the final answer key was released, no change of the answers was recorded.
The boy told the court that due to incorrect evaluation, he got a lesser score and was placed lower in the merit list. Although he was shortlisted and called for counselling, he said he was denied the opportunity to take admission in an institute of his choice.
Since his answers were correct and his objections were improperly considered and wrongly rejected, the petitioner approached the court.
In his plea, the boy sought directions to:
-Withdraw the incorrect questions
-Award marks against such questions, and also against the option which is also correct
-Modify the marks and rank of the petitioner accordingly in CLAT-2026 for admission to 5-year LL.B. courses conducted by National Law Universities in the 2026-27 session.
-Declare that either the disputed questions are incorrect or multiple answers/options are correct in the question papers.
What the court said
After hearing submissions from both sides, the bench observed, “… Expert Committee has gone into the objections and has given its opinion/answers. Thus, the said answers given by the Expert Committee in the considered opinion of this Court need no alteration."
"It is, however, seen that for question no. 9 of Booklet C (corresponding to question no. 91 of Booklet A), the Oversight Committee has overruled the said decision of the Expert Committee and retained the correct option as answer ‘B’ for the aforesaid question without assigning any reasons,” the court observed.
Observing that the Expert Committee comprised subject experts, while the Oversight Committee consisted of former high dignitaries, the bench stated in the order: “… while overruling the decision of the said Expert Committee, no reasons have been recorded for arriving at the conclusion, therefore, the same is contrary to settled law.”
“Although the respondent (Consortium of National Law Universities) in their written submissions has tried to support the decision of the Oversight Committee by enclosing the reasons of the original paper setter, the same has not been filed on an affidavit… Moreover, once the Expert Committee has given its answer after going through the entire records, then the views of the original paper setter are of no relevance,” the court observed.
In its order, the bench of Justice Saran directed: “In absence of any reason being given for overruling the decision of the Expert Committee by the Oversight Committee, with respect to question no. 91 of Booklet A (corresponding to question no. 9 of Booklet C), the same is hereby quashed and the answers of the Expert Committee are sustained.”
The court directed the Consortium of National Law Universities “… to revise the merit list by awarding marks against question no. 9 of Booklet C, and all other questions which correspond to the same in different booklets of CLAT-2026 entrance examination by treating both ‘B’ and ‘D’ as correct answers.”
“… Revise the merit list and republish/re-notify the same within a period of one month from today. Since it has been informed at the Bar that the first round of counselling has already been finalised, students/candidates who have already taken admission pursuant to the first round of counselling shall not be disturbed.”
“For further counselling, the respondents are directed to act on the revised/re-notified merit list…”, it added.
