The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is the gateway to prestigious National Law Universities (NLUs) in India, yet year after year, it finds itself embroiled in controversies ranging from paper leaks to technical failures. CLAT 2025 is no exception, as yet another legal battle looms over exam errors and discrepancies. The repeated mismanagement of this critical examination raises serious questions about the credibility of the organizing body—the CLAT Consortium.
A History of Errors and Controversies:
For over a decade, CLAT has been plagued by administrative blunders that have impacted thousands of aspiring law students. Here’s a brief history of the major controversies:
- 2009: The exam was rescheduled due to a paper leak.
- 2011: Errors in question formatting resulted in underlined answers, indicating oversight.
- 2012: Out-of-syllabus questions and issues with ranking methodology led to legal challenges.
- 2014: CLAT results were withdrawn and re-declared due to inaccuracies in score calculations.
- 2017: English section had lots of errors.
- 2018: Technical glitches in the online exam format caused students to lose valuable time, leading to court cases.
- 2025: The latest controversy revolves around erroneous questions and an unreliable answer key, prompting multiple lawsuits and a Supreme Court intervention.
This persistent mismanagement is not just an administrative failure—it is a betrayal of trust for thousands of students who dedicate years of preparation for this high-stakes examination.
What Can the CLAT Committee Do to Fix This?- Independent Oversight and Transparency: The CLAT Consortium must establish an independent regulatory body comprising legal and academic experts to oversee the entire examination process. Transparency in paper-setting, evaluation, and result declaration is essential to restoring faith in the system.
- Standardized Quality Control Measures: The consortium must adopt rigorous quality control mechanisms to eliminate errors in the question paper and answer keys. Questions should be double or triple-verified by experts before finalization, ensuring clarity and alignment with the syllabus.
- Pre-Exam Technical Audits: The technical failures of CLAT 2018 and other online examinations could have been avoided with pre-exam stress testing of the digital platform. Any online-based exam must undergo extensive trial runs under real-world conditions before implementation. In future if CLAT goes Online again, they should have this kind of audit in place.
- Answer keys with complete solution: A complete key with step-by-step solution / explanation should be released so that no doubt exists in the minds of the student. Just releasing the answer key is not enough.
- Clear Redressal Mechanism for Students: When errors occur, students should have a clear and efficient redressal mechanism instead of resorting to legal battles. This can include an independent grievance committee that promptly reviews concerns and provides resolutions within a set timeframe.
- Grievance Committee: Sufficient time should be given to students to be heard. They should not be rushed by keeping tight deadlines like 3 days or even 7 days. If the intent is to actually redress a genuine grievance, then the committee needs to get atleast a 30-45 day window to do justice to it. They will have to hear each and every student who has a grievance. The Grievance committee should not be an eye wash.
- Greater Accountability for Errors: The CLAT Consortium must acknowledge its past mistakes and hold responsible individuals accountable. An error-reporting system with public disclosure of corrective actions taken would deter repeated mistakes. They should maintain an Audit Trail of who created the questions, who checked and verified the questions, so there is a clear way to identify and fix the accountability.
- Structured Contingency Plans There must be a predefined contingency plan for unforeseen issues such as paper leaks, digital failures, or legal challenges. This would ensure that any crisis is managed effectively without unnecessary delays or confusion for students.
- Don't Rush the Students: The current method of releasing the results and giving a couple of days for Objections and then quickly releasing the results seems like a rush to seal the merit list. They must realize that students have worked very hard to prepare for this competitive exam and they need to be allowed time to object to questions, raise their grievances, have their grievances heard etc. The whole timetable around declaration of marks, merit list, giving objections and declaring results seems like a rushed-up affair. This whole method has to change. The whole point of moving the exam to December from May is lost, if they will not use this extra time of 4-5 months to conduct the post exam events in a proper manner.
A Final Plea for Reform: CLAT is an exam that determines the future of thousands of students aspiring to join the legal profession. The consistent failures of the Consortium damage not only the credibility of the examination but also the confidence of candidates who put their careers on the line. The legal community, including Supreme Court interventions, has time and again urged reforms, yet the same issues persist. It is time for the CLAT Consortium to take responsibility and implement meaningful, long-term solutions rather than issuing reactionary statements after every controversy. Students deserve a fair, transparent, and error-free examination process—one that upholds the very principles of justice and due process that law schools are meant to teach. If the Consortium fails to act now, the future of legal education in India stands at serious risk. The time for reforms is not tomorrow—it is right now.
Past CLAT controversy Reference List:
Here are some notable occurrences:
- 2009: The exam, initially scheduled for May 17, was postponed due to tampering of sealed boxes containing test materials during transit from Hyderabad to Lucknow.
- 2011: Candidates reported that up to 12 questions had underlined answers, indicating oversight by the organizers.
- 2012: Allegations arose regarding out-of-syllabus questions and errors in the rank list, leading to legal challenges.
- 2014: The results were withdrawn and re-declared due to inaccuracies, prompting lawsuits for a re-examination.
- 2017: The English section contained several errors, causing confusion among test-takers.
- 2018: students approached the Supreme Court since there were server problems during the examination. However, the Court refused to order a re-examination.
- 2020: NLSIU announced that it would be withdrawing from CLAT, and conducting its own entrance test, the National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT).However, the Supreme Court of India struck down the separate entrance test conducted by NLSIU and ordered it to re-join CLAT.
- 2025 - Errors in paper. Merit list has been challenged. Counselling process has been halted. Matter is before the Supreme Court.
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