Post-Graduate Candidates Move Kerala High Court Challenging Registration, Confirmation Fees For CLAT Exam

The Consortium of NLUs (Consortium of National Law Universities) is a society registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act. Among other things, the body is responsible for conducting the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and facilitating admission to the National Law Universities.

Today (June 17), when the case came up for admission before Justice D. K. Singh, the Standing Counsels for the Bar Council of India (3^rd respondent) and for the University Grants Commission (4^th respondent) took notice. Notice was issued to the Consortium (2^nd respondent) by speed post.

The writ petition has challenged the two-tier fee structure as arbitrary, disproportionate and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. It is also stated that the fee fails to consider the socio-economic disparities of the applicants. Moreover, it is also stated that the imposition of the said fees is not mentioned in the prospectus or in the Admission Notification.

Background

The petitioners are three candidates who have appeared in the CLAT PG exam. According to them, the CLAT admission counselling process includes a two-tier fee structure. First, an amount of INR 30,000 is levied as Counselling Registration Fee (INR 20,000 from SC, ST, PWD, EWS, OBC candidates). Thereafter, in the event of allotment of a seat in any of the counselling rounds, the candidates have the choice of exercising either 'Freeze' or 'Float' options.

In the Freeze option, the candidate can accept the allotted seat, and in the Float option, the candidate can retain the seat allotted but would be eligible to move upwards in the allotment process. Upon exercising either of these options, a mandatory and non-refundable payment of INR 20,000 must be made as a Confirmation Fee.

The petition is moved by Advocates Sarath K.P., Risvi Muhammed and Gokul Krishnan R.

The petitioners were assisted by the Legal Collective for Students' Rights (LCSR), a student-led, not-for-profit organisation.

Case No: WP (C) No. 22197 of 2025

Case Title: Sandhra Eliza Suresh and Ors. v. Union of India and Ors.