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CLAT 2020- Everything You Need to Know

 

The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is the gateway to national law universities (NLUs) in the country. Currently, there are 22 NLUs that will be participating in CLAT 2020. It is conducted by the Consortium of NLUs that was established in 2017. The exam will be held on 10 May, 2020. It will be conducted offline. The official notification will be released in the last week of December. The application process will commence from 1 January, 2020.

ELIGIBILITY:

 Age limit:

For both undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) levels, there is no upper age limit.

Education Qualifications:

Undergraduate (UG): The qualifying examination is 10+2 or an equivalent examination. A candidate must have secured a minimum of 45% marks or its equivalent grade in case of candidate belonging to General / OBC / PWD / NRI / PIO / OCI categories. In the case of a candidate belonging to SC/ST categories, he/she must have secured 40% marks or its equivalent grade. The result of the qualifying examination (i.e., 10+2) shall be submitted by the candidate at the time of admission failing which the candidate shall be ineligible for admission to the Course.

Those who are appearing in the qualifying examination in March/April, 2020 are also eligible to appear in CLAT 2020 examination. However, they shall be required to produce evidence of their passing the qualifying examination at the time of admission. If they fail to do so, they shall lose their right to be considered for admission.

Postgraduate (PG): PG candidates will require an LLB degree or an equivalent examination. A candidate must have secured a minimum of 55% marks or its equivalent grade in case of candidates belonging to General/OBC/PWD/NRI/PIO/OCI categories. For SC/ST candidates, they must have secured a minimum of 50% marks or its equivalent grade. Those candidates who are appearing in the qualifying exam in April/May, 2020 are also eligible to apply.

Tie-breaker in case of equal marks in UG exam: If students score equal marks, then the break of tie shall be decided as under:

  1. Higher marks in the component/section on legal aptitude in the CLAT 2020 exam;
  2. Higher age;
  3. Computerised draw of lots.

PAPER PATTERN: CHANGES INTRODUCED

Undergraduate (UG): This time, the pattern has been revised to encourage critical thinking in the students. For the UG level, the number of questions has been reduced to 150 from the earlier 200. This has been done to reduce the stress that students had to bear while answering 200 questions in 2 hours. While the number of questions has reduced, their pattern has been changed to comprehension-based. This means that each answer will require careful thought and analysis. The number of sections remains the same. There will be five sections as follows:

  1. English Language
  2. Current Affairs, including General Knowledge
  3. Legal Reasoning
  4. Logical Reasoning
  5. Quantitative Techniques

In all, there will be 150 multiple choice questions of one mark each to be completed in 2 hours. There will be negative marking of 0.25 marks for each wrong answer.

Postgraduate (PG): For the PG students, the pattern and number of questions remain the same. There will be 150 questions to be completed in 2 hours. There will be 100 multiple choice questions of one mark each. There will be 2 essay-type questions of 25 marks each. These will be based on law and contemporary issues and should be 800 words per essay. The subjects covered under the exam are as follows:

  1. Constitutional Law
  2. Other Law Subjects such as Contract, Torts, Criminal Law, International Law, IPR and Jurisprudence.

A wrong answer will attract a negative marking of 0.25 marks.

This time, a cut-off has been introduced at the PG level. Only those candidates who secure minimum 40% marks (35% in case of SC, ST and PWD categories) in the objective section will qualify to have their answer scripts evaluated for the descriptive section.

APPLICATION FEE: The fees for the application form is Rs. 4000/- for General/OBC/PWD/NRI/PIO/OCI candidates and Rs. 3500/- for SC/ST/BPL category candidates.

Additionally, candidates can get previous years’ question papers for Rs. 500/- (not included in the application fee).

DEADLINE: The last date to submit the completed application form and pay the fees is 31 March, 2020.

All the details can be found on the official website: https://consortiumofnlus.ac.in