Common Law Admission Test

Before the introduction of CLAT, the National Law Universities conducted their own separate entrance tests, requiring the candidates to prepare and appear separately for each of these tests. The schedule of the administration of these tests sometimes conflicted with the other or with other major entrance tests such as the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination and the All India Pre Medical Test. This caused students to miss tests and experience much stress.[2]

There are twenty-three National Law Universities in India, the first of which is the National Law School of India University, which admitted its first batch of students in 1987. Out of twenty three, the National Law University, Delhi conducts its own separate entrance test known as All India Law Entrance Test.[3] With the emergence of other law schools, which also sought to conduct their admission tests at around the same time, students faced a hard time preparing for them. From time to time this issue to conduct a common entrance exam to reduce the burden of the students to give multiple test was raised, but given the autonomous status of each law school, there was no nodal agency to co-ordinate action to this regard.[4]

The matter drew national attention when a Public Interest Litigation was filed by Varun Bhagat against the Union of India and various National Law Universities in the Supreme Court of India in 2006. The Chief Justice of India directed the Union of India to consult with the National Law Universities to formulate a common test. The move was strongly supported by the Bar Council of India.[5][6]

Given the lack of a central nodal authority to bring forth a consensus on the issue, the Ministry of Human Resources Development, (Government of India) and the University Grants Commission of India organised a meeting of the Vice-Chancellors of seven National Law Universities along with the Chairman of the Bar Council of India. After a few such meetings, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the Vice-Chancellors of the seven National Law Universities on 23 November 2007 to conduct a common admission test. The Common Law Admission Test was to be conducted each year by each of the law colleges and the responsibility of conducting the exam was to be rotated and given on the basis of seniority in the establishment. Nonetheless, the matter has not been resolved completely as there are other national law universities that were not taking part in CLAT. However, finally in 2015, a fresh MoU was signed by the sixteen National Law Universities, except for National Law University, Delhi for the CLAT 2015 being conducted by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow whereby all the National Law Universities are now part of the centralized admission process without anyone being left out.[7]

Only Indian nationals and NRIs can appear in the test. The foreign nationals desirous of taking admission to any course in any of the participating Law Universities may directly contact the concerned University having seats for foreign nationals.[8]

The eligibility requirements are as follows:

This law entrance exam is of two hours duration. The CLAT question paper consists of 150 multiple choice questions. There are five sections in CLAT exam paper which are:[10]

• English including Comprehension
• Current affairs including General Knowledge
• Legal Reasoning
• Logical Reasoning
• Quantitative Techniques ( Mathematics)

All the questions will be paragraph based starting from CLAT 2020. One paragraph will be followed by 5-6 questions. The break up of marks is generally as follows - English 30, Current Affairs including General Knowledge:37, Quantitative Techniques:15, Logical Reasoning:30 and Legal Reasoning:38.

Marking Scheme: For every correct answer, aspirants are given one mark and for each wrong answer 0.25 marks are deducted from their total score.[11]

The list of National Law Universities in India according to their year of establishment :

1. National Law School of India University, Bangalore
2. NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad
3. National Law Institute University, Bhopal
4. The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata
5. National Law University, Jodhpur, Jodhpur
6. Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur
7. Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar
8. Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow
9. National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi
10. Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala
11. Chanakya National Law University, Patna
12. National Law University Odisha, Cuttack
13. Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University, Vishakhapatnam
14. National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi
15. National Law School and Judicial Academy, Guwahati
16. Tamil Nadu National Law University, Trichy
17. Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai
18. Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur
19. Maharashtra National Law University, Aurangabad
20. Himachal Pradesh National Law University, Shimla
21. Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur
22. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar National Law University, Sonipat

The CLAT form provides the students with a preference list.[12] Each student fills the preference list, according to the colleges he/she desires.[13] On the basis of these preferences and ranks obtained, students are allocated colleges. As the NLUs are established by the respective state governments, therefore most NLUs also have reservations for their domiciled candidates.[14]

The first CLAT Core Committee consisting of Vice-Chancellors of the seven participating NLUs at that time decided that the test should be conducted by rotation in the order of their establishment.[15] Accordingly, the first CLAT was conducted in 2008 by the National Law School of India University.[4] Subsequently, CLAT-2009, CLAT-2010, CLAT-2011, CLAT-2012, CLAT-2013, CLAT-2014, CLAT-2015, CLAT-2016, CLAT-2017, CLAT-2018 and CLAT-2019 have been conducted[16] by NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, National Law Institute University, The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, National Law University, Jodhpur, Hidayatullah National Law University, Gujarat National Law University, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Chanakya National Law University, National University of Advanced Legal Studies[17] and National Law University Odisha[18] respectively.[19] However, from 2019 , CLAT is conducted by Consortium of NLUs, a body consisting of Vice-chancellors of all the NLU's, which was formed in March, 2019.[20]

CLAT-2009, which was scheduled to be held on 17 May 2009 was rescheduled to 31 May 2009 due to leak of question papers.[21]

CLAT-2011 candidates were disappointed with the standard of exam, as up to 12 questions in the various sections had underlined answers due to the oversight of the organisers and students also found the paper lengthy in comparison to the time limit provided (i.e. 2 hours).[22]

CLAT-2012 was marred by a number of controversies, which includes allegations of setting questions out of syllabus and out of the pre-declared pattern.[23] The declared rank list also contained an error, due to which the first list was taken down and a fresh list was put up.[24] The declared question-answer keys contained several errors, which resulted in petitions being filed by the aggrieved students in different High Courts.[25][26]

CLAT-2014 was conducted by GNLU, Gandhinagar and was also heavily criticized for being poorly conducted[27] with results being withdrawn and declared again.[28] Even lawsuits had been filed for re-examination.[29] The uploaded OMRs were then allowed to be physically verified in the GNLU Campus after students demanded the same.

CLAT-2017 the English paper had several errors.[30]

CLAT-2018 students approached the Supreme Court since there were server problems during the examination. However the Court refused to order a re-examination.[31]

In 2020, NLSIU announced that it would be withdrawing from CLAT, and conducting its own entrance test, the National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT).[32][33] However, the Supreme court of India struck down the separate entrance test conducted by NLSIU and ordered it to re-join CLAT.[34]

• Consortium of NLUs