CLAT 2020 Schedule, Syllabus, Eligibility and Participating Universities
The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is a national level entrance exam for admissions to undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) law programmes offered by 22 National Law Universities around the country.
CLAT is organized by the Consortium of National Law Universities consisting of the representative universities.
Registrations are open since 1st January, 2020 and will remain open until 1st July, 2020. The date of examination will be announced by 1st July giving students at least 21 days' prior notice for the exam.
Key Dates-
Applications Open- 01 Jan, 2020
Application Deadline- 01 July, 2020
CLAT 2020 date will be announced later on
UG Eligibility
1. There will be no upper age limit for UG Programme in CLAT 2020.
2. As regards minimum percentage of marks in the qualifying examination (i.e., 10+2 or an equivalent examination), the candidates must have secured:
Forty five percent (45%) marks or its equivalent grade in case of candidates belonging to General / OBC / PWD / NRI / PIO / OCI categories
Forty Percent (40%) marks or equivalent in case of candidates belonging to SC/ST categories.
3. Candidates 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 an evidence of their passing the qualifying examination at the time of admission, failing which they shall lose their right to be considered for admission.
4. 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.
5. In case of equal marks, the break of tie shall be by the following procedure and order as under:
i. Higher marks in the component / section on legal aptitude in the CLAT 2020 exam;
ii. Higher age;
iii. Computerised draw of lots.
UG Syllabus & Guide
GUIDE TO THE UG-CLAT 2020
The Consortium of National Law Universities (the “Consortium”) announced certain modifications in the pattern of the Common Law Admission Test (the “CLAT”), 2020 in its Press Release of November 21, 2019.
This note describes the proposed pattern of questions for each of the five specified areas that the Undergraduate-CLAT 2020 (the "UG-CLAT 2020") would comprise.
Introduction and Overview
The UG-CLAT 2020 would focus on evaluating the comprehension and reasoning skills and abilities of candidates. Overall, it is designed to be a test of aptitude and skills that are necessary for a legal education rather than prior knowledge, though prior knowledge occasionally may be useful to respond to questions in the Current Affairs section.
The UG-CLAT 2020 shall be a 2-hour test, with 150 multiple-choice questions carrying 1 mark each. There shall be negative marking of 0.25 marks for every wrong answer. These questions would be divided across the following 5 subjects:
English Language
Current Affairs, including General Knowledge
Legal Reasoning
Logical Reasoning
Quantitative Techniques
English Language
In this section of the UG-CLAT 2020, you will be provided passages of about 450 words each. These passages will be derived from contemporary or historically significant fiction and non-fiction writing, and would be of a standard that a 12th standard student may be able to read in about 5-7 minutes.
Each passage will be followed by a series of questions that will require you to demonstrate your comprehension and language skills, including your abilities to:
Read and comprehend the main point discussed in the passage, as well as any arguments and viewpoints discussed or set out in the passage;
Draw inferences and conclusions based on the passage;
Summarise the passage;
Compare and contrast the different arguments or viewpoints set out in the passage; and
Understand the meaning of various words and phrases used in the passage.
Current Affairs Including General Knowledge
In this section, you will be provided passages of up to 450 words each. The passages will be derived from news, journalistic sources and other non-fiction writing. The questions may include an examination of legal information or knowledge discussed in or related to the passage, but would not require any additional knowledge of the law beyond the passage.
Each passage will be followed by a series of questions that will require you to demonstrate your awareness of various aspects of current affairs and general knowledge, including:
Contemporary events of significance from India and the world;
Arts and culture;
International affairs; and
Historical events of continuing significance.
Legal Reasoning
In this section, you will be expected to read passages of around 450 words each. The passages may relate to fact situations or scenarios involving legal matters, public policy questions or moral philosophical enquiries. You will not require any prior knowledge of law. You will benefit from a general awareness of contemporary legal and moral issues to better apply general principles or propositions to the given fact scenarios.
Each passage would be followed by a series of questions that will require you to:
Identify and infer the rules and principles set out in the passage;
Apply such rules and principles to various fact situations; and
Understand how changes to the rules or principles may alter their application to various fact situations.
Logical Reasoning
The Logical Reasoning section of the UG-CLAT 2020 will include a series of short passages of about 300 words each. Each passage will be followed by one or more questions that will require you to:
Recognize an argument, its premises and conclusions;
Read and identify the arguments set out in the passage;
Critically analyse patterns of reasoning, and assess how conclusions may depend on particular premises or evidence;
Infer what follows from the passage and apply these inferences to new situations;
Draw relationships and analogies, identify contradictions and equivalence, and assess the effectiveness of arguments.
Quantitative Techniques
The Quantitative Techniques section of the UG-CLAT 2020 will include short sets of facts or propositions, graphs, or other textual, pictorial or diagrammatic representations of numerical information, followed by a series of questions. You will be required to derive information from such passages, graphs, or other representations, and apply mathematical operations on such information.
The questions will require you to:
Derive, infer, and manipulate numerical information set out in such passages, graphs, or other representations; and
Apply various 10th standard mathematical operations on such information, including from areas such as ratios and proportions, basic algebra, mensuration and statistical estimation.
Preparing for the UG-CLAT 2020
The Consortium plans to publish various preparatory materials for the UG-CLAT 2020, including:
Guides to the question paper and sample questions;
Model question papers; and
Instructional materials and exercises for each of the subjects that the UG-CLAT 2020 comprises.
The Consortium will also provide candidates who have successfully completed their application to the UG-CLAT 2020 access to a learning platform where you may access the preparatory materials described above, as well as your scores on various exercises and model question papers.
In addition, you should develop your capacity to read and understand bodies of text, ensure you stay abreast of news and current affairs by regularly reading quality newspapers and periodicals, and improve your speed of answering questions on quantitative techniques by practising with materials such as 10th standard mathematics textbooks.
PG Eligibility
An LL.B Degree or an equivalent examination with a minimum of Fifty percent (50%) of marks or its equivalent grade in case of candidates belonging to General/OBC/PWD/NRI/PIO/OCI categories and Forty-Five percent (45%) of marks or its equivalent grade in case of candidates belonging to SC/ST categories.
Candidates appearing in the qualifying examination in April/May 2020 are also eligible to apply.
No upper age limit is prescribed for appearing in CLAT 2020.
PG Syllabus & Guide
GUIDE TO THE PG-CLAT 2020
The Consortium of National Law Universities (the “Consortium”), in its Press Release of November 21, 2019 related to the Common Law Admission Test (the “CLAT”), 2020 stated, inter alia:
"Similarly [as the UG-CLAT 2020], the PG admission test will also have comprehension based questions. The descriptive portion will remain the same as last year."
This note describes the proposed pattern of questions for the PG-CLAT 2020.
Introduction and Overview
The PG-CLAT 2020 will feature an emphasis on the comprehension abilities of the students. It shall be of 120 minutes duration, with two sections:
The first section would include 100 objective-type questions carrying 1 mark each. There shall be a negative marking of 0.25 marks for every wrong answer.
The second section would require candidates to write 2 descriptive essays.
Candidates who secure 40% (35% in case of SC, ST, and PWD) marks in the objective section will qualify for the evaluation of their answers in the descriptive section.
The paper will be based on the mandatory subjects of the undergraduate program and include Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence, Administrative Law, Law of Contract, Torts, Family Law, Criminal Law, Property Law, Company Law, Public International Law, Tax Law, Environmental Law, and Labour & Industrial Law.
Objective Section
In this section of the PG-CLAT 2020, you will be provided extracts from primary legal materials such as important court decisions in various fields of law, statutes or regulations. Each passage will be followed by a series of questions that will require you to demonstrate the:
Ability to read and comprehend the issues discussed in the passage, as well as any arguments and viewpoints discussed or set out in the passage;
Awareness of the issues discussed in the passage, as well as of legal issues and facts related to and arising out of the passage and the judgment or statute from which it is extracted;
Summarise the passage; and
Ability to apply your knowledge of the fields of law discussed in the passage.
Descriptive Section
In this section of the PG-CLAT 2020, you will be required to write essays answering Any 2 questions from amongst the list of questions supplied. Your answers must not exceed 800 words each, and you will be required to demonstrate the following in your response:
Awareness of the legal, factual, and philosophical issues arising out of the questions you choose to answer;
Ability to structure your answer, and clearly set out various arguments and perspectives related to the topic set out in the questions and to draw a conclusion based on the above.
Preparing for the PG-CLAT 2020
As part of your preparations for the PG-CLAT 2020, you should:
Read and refresh your knowledge of important judgments, and try to discern various issues discussed in such judgments;
Refresh your knowledge of important constitutional and legislative provisions, particularly those that may have been discussed in recent judgments; it would also be useful to ensure you are aware of historical case law and amendments related to such provisions, so that you have a more complete awareness of such provisions and the issues related to them;
Practice writing essays of the type indicated above, with clear presentations of issues, factual matters, arguments and conclusion.
Participating Universities-
To view participating Universities and to download their Prospectus- Click here
For more info & to Apply online- Click here
