Allahabad High Court Orders Revision of CLAT 2026 Merit List, Slams Arbitrary Overruling of Experts’ Decision
By Rajesh Pandey
The Allahabad High Court has directed the Consortium of National Law Universities to revise the CLAT 2026 merit list and issue a corrected version within a month, after finding that a key answer in the entrance examination was altered arbitrarily by a high-powered oversight committee without assigning any reasons.
Justice Vivek Saran, while hearing a petition filed by minor student Avneesh Gupta, held that the consortium acted unlawfully by overturning the conclusions of a subject expert committee regarding a disputed logical reasoning question.
The court ordered that for the controversial Question No. 9 (in Booklet C) — and its corresponding questions in other versions of the CLAT 2026 paper — both options B and D must be treated as correct.
It further instructed that the revised merit list be published accordingly within one month.
The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2026 was conducted on December 7, 2025. The petitioner had appeared for the exam and challenged the official answer key for Questions 6, 9, and 13 in Booklet C (equivalent to Questions 88, 91, and 95 in the Master Booklet A).
While the court declined to interfere with Questions 6 and 13, it found Question 9 to be open to legitimate challenge.
During the proceedings, it emerged that a subject expert committee — comprising professors of logic, philosophy, and an assistant professor of economics — had carefully examined the objection and concluded that both options B and D were correct.
However, the high-powered oversight committee later reversed this finding and retained only option B as the correct answer, without providing any justification.
Referring to the minutes of the meetings, the High Court noted that no reasons were recorded by the oversight committee for rejecting the expert panel’s conclusion.
The court held that such an approach violated settled legal principles, emphasising that even administrative decisions must be supported by clear reasoning to demonstrate proper application of the mind.
The court further observed that while the expert committee consisted of academic specialists in the relevant subject areas, the oversight committee was largely made up of former senior officials.
In the absence of any rationale for discarding the expert opinion, the court ruled that the expert committee’s findings must prevail.
The High Court also dismissed the consortium’s objection regarding territorial jurisdiction.
The consortium had argued that since it is registered in Karnataka and all procedures were conducted there, the Allahabad High Court lacked authority to hear the case.
Rejecting this claim, the court pointed out that the petitioner had taken the examination in Uttar Pradesh, which conferred jurisdiction upon the court.
The ruling is expected to impact the rankings of several candidates and has reinforced the principle that expert academic assessments cannot be set aside arbitrarily by administrative bodies.
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