Yesterday at 1:23pm candidates received an email:

Dear Candidate

The Most appropriate Answer (Key) of Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) - 2014 (UG Courses) has been released on 19.05.2014 and can be accessed from your respective LOGIN ACCOUNT till 21.05.2014 (16:00:00 Hrs).

Regards Team-CLAT 2014

Candidates’ accounts contained a link to the full CLAT 2014 question paper, with the purportedly correct answers circled in red.

[See 2014 CLAT paper and ‘model’ answers here]

While most of the answers appear to be correct, at least one of the questions actually had two correct answers, while in at least three questions, the wrong answer was circled.

Candidates and CLAT mentor Rajneesh Singh had first pointed this out in a Facebook group called CLAT 2014 - Please correct the answers, which amassed nearly 900 members in only 24 hours.

GNLU Gandhinagar director Bimal Patel, who is this year’s convenor of the CLAT that it conducts with the help of state-owned company Guj Info Petro Limited, did not respond to a call and SMS from Legally India seeking comment.

Update: Patel commemted in an SMS: “Your statement may be premature and may press panic button as verification is ongoing. Candidates will give their comments till tomorrow after whih we will analyse their comments and if any answer key needs rectification, all candidates will be informed accordingly. i am sure as much you want correct reporting by asking us questions, we too require necessary waiting period. pls wait in the larger interest of clat candidates and parent and credibility of your news.”

One candidate wrote on Facebook: “After going through the document completely, I’ve spotted more than a couple of fallacies in the Answer Key. As aspirants, we’ve got to act on these soon and shoot off as many letters to GNLU as soon as we can!”

The results are due to be announced on 31 May.

Obvious bugs

Question 41 was fundamentally flawed, in that it had two possible correct answers. The supplied answer key (see below) specified 53 as the correct number to follow a sequence of 19, 29, 37 and 43, apparently relying on a pattern of selecting every second sequential prime number. However, going by a pattern of reducing each number by two less than the previous subtractor (i.e., reducing each previous number by 10, 8, 6 and then 4), Answer B (47) would have been similarly correct and more straightforward.

Question 12 caused some consternation too, with the apparently official answer key having selected Answer B, producing a mostly illogical sequence of sentences. The better, yet still awkwardly phrased sequence, would have been D in this case.

Question 145, concerning logic, also provided the wrong circled answer, while question 198, broadly about legal principles and logic, also provided a doubtful answer, according to Singh and several CLAT takers on the site.

If you have any queries or want to discuss answers, please leave a comment below.

In 2012 and 2013 the CLAT university allocation lists contained errors, that were later fixed, while NLU Delhi’s 2012 admission test and the 2011 CLAT also contained errors in their answer keys. Singh argued at the time that the CLAT administration, which changes year-by-year between national law schools, needs to be radically overhauled to provide a more consistent experience.

Update 14:16: Open letter to Bimal Patel

Singh has written an open letter to Patel:

Honourable Director Sir,

GNLU, Gandhinagar.

There are serious problems with the answers of the CLAT questions published recently. This is happening year after year. This is highly surprising. This had happened in CLAT 2011 and 2012 too. In 2012 it was in a good number. But CLAT 2012 was very rigid in accepting this. Case was filed, but the judgement came too late.

Sir, please get the answers corrected before the OMR sheets go for scanning. I have seen CLAT 2012 and CLAT 2013 entire conduction very closely (by NLU-J and HNLU). There was a significant difference between the two.

NLU-J had a very arrogant and rigid approach. They kept doing mistakes like wrong questions, wrong answers, wrong syllabus, wrong listing etc, but were not ready to accept those mistakes. Thanks to LI and all FB forums which made them to accept that the first list published had lots of errors (at least). High court later passed a judgement that answers were wrong.

Contrary to this, not only HNLU conduction was the best ever, but they were ready to accept and rectify their mistakes. They accepted some rejected forms, which were rejected based on some silly reasons. Although they had every right to reject and technically the rejection was correct, still this decision drew a great respect towards HNLU from all of us.

We have great expectations from you and the reasons are.

1. CLAT 2014 is likely to be the best CLAT conducted ever. The start is brilliant.

2. CLAT paper was good. Some very good online initiative has been taken and a big thanks from all of us for publishing the paper with answers on time.

3. I do not know if it is also because of NaMo effect or not, but certainly because of you GNLU has gained a big status.

4. You have created a hope that CLAT will improve gradually, otherwise after disastrous 2012 we all very depressed.

Update 15:51: The CLAT office has responded to candidates by email with the following:

Dear Candidate

This is to inform that the CLAT Office will not be in a position to take into consideration a mere mention that the most appropriate answer (key) to a particular question(s) placed on the CLAT website is wrong, without any proper logical reasoning or explanation from your end. The most appropriate answers placed are correct.

Kindly mention the question(s) along with the reason or explanation and the answer found appropriate by you to take into consideration your views constructively.