GNLU Gandhinagar, the convenor of this year's Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT), has promised to investigate and fix candidates complaints of wrong grades on the 2014 exam, which was apparently caused by a mix up of stickers and bar codes on exam papers.

The announcement follows GNLU withdrawing Saturday's results after possibly hundreds of candidates complained that their CLAT marks were between 20 and 150 marks less than expected out of a total of 200 points.

A statement sent by GNLU director Bimal Patel read:

Upon declaration of the results on 31 May 2014, the CLAT -2014 Secretariat, Gujarat National Law University, received emails from several CLAT-2014 candidates expressing concern on the marks expected and the score declared.

During the examination, to ensure integrity and confidentiality of the OMR sheet, the candidates were required to put the barcode sticker on the front page of OMR while name, signature, roll number and candidate sticker were to be affixed along with invigilator’s signature, and later concealed on the back page of the OMR sheet. Candidates were also required to sign the attendance list, after affixing of the stickers, in addition to display of admit card and signature by the invigilators.

During the process of dealing with the queries upon the declaration of the results, the only issue the Secretariat found was that the barcode sticker affixed on the front page of OMR answer sheet and candidate sticker affixed on the back page, in few cases, was mismatching. Any mismatch between the barcode and the candidate sticker can cause the marks being reflected against a different roll number. In other words, if on the OMR of candidate X, by mistake the barcode sticker of candidate Y was affixed on the front page, (s)he would get score of Y candidate than his/her own. This would obviously generate a scenario of mismatching of score and eventual incorrect merit list. To remove any error due to this mismatch and to ensure that the OMR-generated score belongs to the corresponding candidate only, the reconciliation of the barcode sticker and the candidate sticker has been undertaken for all candidates. The process integrity and confidentiality standards adopted by the CLAT -2014Secretariat are very high and the robust mechanism has been adopted to eliminate any scope of error. Therefore, candidates are advised and reassured that they should have no doubt whatsoever. Furthermore, OMR answer sheets will be uploaded in individual candidate’s login account once the reconciliation process is over. In addition to access to their own softcopy of the OMR, CLAT-2014 Secretariat will be open for physical verification by any interested candidates.

CLAT -2014 Secretariat appreciates hundreds of compliments and suggestion from candidates, parents and all stakeholders on uploading of the model answer key and the process of online registration, counseling and admission undertaken for the first time since the introduction of CLAT in 2008. The reconciliation process will ensure fairness and justice to everyone and eliminate any error or doubt anyone may have in the process.

The revised results will be declared as soon as possible and we will ensure that any delay due to this reconciliation is reduced to the maximum extent possible. CLAT-2014 Secretariat thanks all for their patience, understanding and cooperation.