'Why No Permanent Body To Conduct CLAT?' : Supreme Court Decides To Pursue Late Prof Shamnad Basheer's 2015 Plea

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (May 7) decided to suo motu take up a writ petition filed by late Professor Shamnad Basheer in 2015 seeking the formation of a permanent body to conduct the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for admission to National Law Universities.

Since Professor Basheer passed away in 2019, the Court decided to suo motu proceed with the writ petition (WP(c) No.600/2015) and notice was issued to the respondents( Union, BCI and the NLUs).

A bench comprising Justice BR Gavai and Justice AG Masih was hearing petitions challenging the results of the CLAT-UG 2025 test held in December 2024. Noticing several mistakes in the questions, the bench expressed strong disappointment with the "casual manner" in which the Consortium of National Law Universities set the question papers.

"At the outset, we must express our anguish at the causal manner in which the Consortium has been framing the questions for the CLAT examination which involves the career aspirations of lakhs of students in the country," the Court observed in the order.

During the hearing, the bench orally asked why the CLAT could not be conducted by a permanent body instead of the NLUs on a rotation basis.

"This sort of Consortium you have? All Vice Chancellors sitting together, calling themselves academicians of highest repute?," Justice Gavai asked.

"Why don't you have a permanent mechanism? Why can't there be a permanent mechanism like NEET or JEE? Which Vice-Chancellors are framing these questions?" Justice Gavai observed.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, for the petitioners, drew the attention of the bench to a judgment passed by the Supreme Court in 2018 which directed the Union to constitute a committee to explore the possibility of having a permanent body for CLAT.

Noting that no steps have been taken by the Union Government or the Bar Council of India pursuant to those directions, the Court issued notice to the Union.

In the 2018 judgment, which dealt with the irregularities in the CLAT exam of that year, the Court had observed :

"We must also observe that the idea of entrusting the task of monitoring the conduct of entire examination to different Law Universities every year also needs to be re-visited. The agreement with the examination conducting body, which was placed on record indicates that as against the amount made over to such examination conducting body, the fees charged from the candidates are far in excess. The committee shall bestow consideration to all these aspects after having inputs from such sources as it may deem appropriate including Bar Council of India and make a detailed report to this Court within three months from today."

Prof. Shamnad Basheer had averred in his petition that despite the growing popularity of CLAT, “its planning and execution over the years has been marred with serious institutional lapses and inefficiencies, such as arbitrary and sub-standard question papers, incorrect questions and answers, questions that have no reasonable nexus to ones aptitude for the study of law, wrongful allotments of seats, unnecessary delays and an opaque administration that fails to comply with basic standards of transparency and the norms underlying the RTI Act.” He therefore sought the setting up of a “robust, structured and institutionalized mechanism for conducting CLAT to avoid uncertainties and reduce the scope for errors and lapses.”

As regards the CLAT-UG 2025 exam, the Court found certain mistakes and issued directions for the award of marks for certain answers and for the deletion of some questions.

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