The Consortium of NLUs, in their meeting chaired by their President Prof. Faizan Mustafa, on November 21, 2019 at Consortium’s permanent secretariat, Bangalore decided on the dates and details for CLAT 2020 as well as some major changes to the pattern and volume of the exam.
Changes in CLAT for UG
The Under-graduate test has been revolutionised with thorough changes to the pattern and number of questions.
According to the press release of the consortium, the changes are aimed to relieve students of mental stress during the exam as well as get better students to National law Universities who have competence in reading texts and demonstrate skills in inferential reasoning.
The changes in CLAT UG paper are as follows:
- The number of questions has been reduced from 200 to 120-150.
- All questions will be comprehension based.
- Questions from Quantitative Techniques, English, Current Affairs, Deductive Reasoning and Logical Reasoning will be asked.
- The paper will test the aptitude of the candidate and not the memory.
The exam will be offline and the duration will be of 2 hours as usual.
Prof. Mustafa said, “asking students to answer 200 questions in 120 minutes is not right as it puts students under a lot of mental stress.”
He also added that “the idea is to get better students to National Law Universities who have competence in reading texts and demonstrate skills in inferential reasoning.”
The changes in CLAT PG paper are as follows:
- The objective part of the test will have comprehension based questions.
- There might be an introduction of cut-off marks
The descriptive part of the test will be the same as last year.
Change in CLAT consortium and committee office bearers
- Prof. V. Vijayakumar, Vice-Chancellor, NLIU, Bhopal was elected as the new President of the Consortium.
- Prof. Paramjit S. Jaswal, Vice-Chancellor, RGNUL, Punjab was elected as the Vice-President of the Consortium
- Prof. Balraj Chouhan, Vice-Chancellor, Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur was elected as CLAT–2020 Convenor
- Prof. Srikrishna Deva Rao, Vice-Chancellor, NLUO was elected as Member of the Executive Council for CLAT – 2020
- Prof. V. Kesava Rao, Vice-Chancellor, NUSRL, Ranchi will attend the meetings of the Executive Council as Special Invitee for the purposes of the conduct of CLAT – 2020.
Important dates for CLAT 2020
- The exam will be held on May 10
- The notification will be released in the last week of December 2019.
- The online application will become available on January 1, 2020.
PRESS RELEASE CONSORTIUM OF NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITIES
The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) – 2020 will be held on May 10, 2020 (Sunday). The notification for CLAT – 2020 will be released in the last week of December, 2019 and the online application form would be available from January 1, 2020. This decision was taken by the Consortium of NLUs in its meeting held today, at the Consortium‘s Permanent Secretariat in Bangalore. The meeting was chaired by the President of the Consortium, Prof. Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad and all the Vice-Chancellors of member NLUs of the Consortium attended the meeting.
The CLAT – 2020 will also have a change in the pattern of the questions for the UG. Comprehension based questions would be asked from Quantitative Techniques, English, Current Affairs, Deductive Reasoning and Logical Reasoning. It was also resolved to reduce the number of questions from 200 to 120-150 questions. Prof. Mustafa said that asking students to answer 200 questions in 120 minutes is not right as it puts students under lot of mental stress. The exam will remain off line and the duration will be two hours. He told that the idea is to get better students to National Law Universities who have competence in reading texts and demonstrate skills in inferential reasoning. Similarly, the PG admission test will also have comprehension based questions. The descriptive portion will remain same as last year. The Consortium has authorised the Executive Council of CLAT–2020 to study the possibility of introducing cut off marks for the LL.M. The details of CLAT-2020 will be notified by the EC.
The Consortium also resolved to undertake several Faculty Development Programmes in various member NLUs and launch a scheme of Scholarship / Fee Concessions for the students of NLUs. The Consortium would also assist the member NLUs in upgrading their library, IT facilities and other infrastructure.
At the end of the meeting, Prof. V. Vijayakumar, Vice-Chancellor, NLIU, Bhopal was elected as the new President and Prof. Paramjit S. Jaswal, Vice-Chancellor, RGNUL, Punjab was elected as the Vice-President. Prof. Balraj Chouhan, Vice-Chancellor, Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur was elected as CLAT–2020 Convenor. Prof. Srikrishna Deva Rao, Vice-Chancellor, NLUO was elected as Member of the Executive Council for CLAT – 2020. Prof. V. Kesava Rao, Vice-Chancellor, NUSRL, Ranchi will attend the meetings of the Executive Council as Special Invitee for the purposes of conduct of CLAT – 2020.
The outgoing President expressed his satisfaction on the formation and registration of Consortium of NLUs and expressed the hope that under the dynamic leadership of Prof. V. Vijayakumar, the Consortium will make meaningful contribution to the legal education in 2019 – 2020. He thanked all the members of the Executive Council and the members of the General Council for their co-operation and support in discharging the duties of President in the first year of the formation of the Consortium of NLUs. Number of changes were made in CLAT – 2019, i.e., the test was made off line from online and in PG paper descriptive portion was included. Further, for the first time carbonised copy of the OMR sheet was provided to the candidates. A Grievance Redressal Committee was also constituted for CLAT – 2019 under the Chairmanship of Hon’ble Sri Justice S. Rajendra Babu, Former Chief Justice of India.
Prof. V. Vijayakumar, after taking over as new President of the Consortium of NLUs thanked the outgoing President for his contribution in the registration of the Consortium and drafting of its MoA and assured that CLAT Consortium will now do more meaningful contribution in terms of Faculty Development of member NLUs.
Click to see our posts which anticipated these changes.