The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2015 secretariat yesterday clarified that it was under no obligation to publish the CLAT 2015 question papers and answer keys on CLAT’s website, despite only having made the publication after receiving requests from several candidates and a court case demanding the keys.

CLAT 2015 convenor RMLNLU Lucknow, via joint registrar Dr JD Gangwar, wrote an email yesterday to Legally India after repeated unsuccessful attempts by us to get in touch with Gangwar and RMLNLU vice chancellor Prof Gurdip Singh at least since since last week Sunday (24 May):

Some of the news items (29.05.2015 and 02.06.2015) relating to CLAT – 15 published on your website were brought to our notice. On examination of your news details, we found these news items unfounded and based on sentiments of desperate unsuccessful candidates. This is to bring to your notice that:-

• ALD H.C. order dated 25.05.2015 does not direct CLAT-15 authorities about publication of question papers. It only directs 'to publish the results in accordance with the provisions of the Brochure' or 'show cause to the Court'. You might be aware that CLAT-15 has already published results in accordance with the CLAT-15 brochure and the candidates are able to access the results through their personal login accounts. The CLAT-15 office will apprise the Hon'ble Court of the same in due course.
• Decision of uploading the question paper on the website of the CLAT has been taken by the CLAT on its own in view of numerous applications of the candidates to provide them question paper. No Court has directed for uploading the question paper so far.

Prestigious and popular websites like yours are expected to adhere to highest standards of balanced reporting based on the facts on record and not on the perceptions of certain individuals. We expect you to please be careful and factual on reporting on the CLAT-15 issues, we shall be happy to provide you required inputs whenever we are approached.

Legally India has added the following clarification to those stories that the high court may not have ordered disclosure of the question paper:

One of the petitioners had told Legally India at the time of first publication that the court had ordered publication of the question papers, in accordance with the brochure. However, the order only mentions that results should be published in accordance with the brochure. The CLAT brochure does not explicitly mention that question papers should be uploaded, although a previous version of the FAQ on the CLAT website did. It therefore appears that the high court order may not have explicitly ordered the publication of the answer and question sheets, subject to whether the FAQ would be deemed to be part of the brochure on the website.

According to the following snapshot of a 15 March 2015 version of the CLAT website’s frequently asked questions (FAQ) page, via www.archive.org, all candidates were told they would be mailed the question paper and answer key for the exam after the exam:

However, a search on www.archive.org suggests that this part of that FAQ page was recently changed to remove this promise altogether.

Legally India has reached out to Gangwar for clarification on the position yesterday and why that change was made.

11 petitioners had approached the Allahabad high court for directions to RMLNLU to publish the question paper and answer key on its website. Although the high court only directed RMLNLU to publish the university allotment list on its website, in accordance with the provisions of the earlier CLAT 2015 brochure, the CLAT secretariat on Monday published one question paper and answer key of the LLB and LLM CLAT 2015 on the website.

The publication of the paper and the key attracted complaints of errors from several candidates.

To consider the errors, RMLNLU has now indefinitely postponed the publication of the first university allotment list that was due to be published on the website yesterday, after a delay of two days from original schedule already.