All about CLAT 2023: Eligibility Criteria, Exam Pattern, Syllabus and other important details!

The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT 2023) will take place on December 18, 2022. CLAT 2023 offers admission to BA LLB, BBA LLB, B.Com LLB, B.Sc. LLB, B.Tech LLB, and LLM programmes. The CLAT score is accepted for undergraduate programmes at 22 National Law Universities (NLUs) and LLM programmes at 19 NLUs. Only the National Law University in Delhi does not use CLAT scores while admitting students. It administers the AILET entrance examination.

As a result, CLAT is a crucial exam for those hoping to pursue a career in legal studies. Since the exam has been preponed for approximately 5 months, the applicants must start their preparations. The candidate must begin by compiling all the crucial information regarding the test.

Name of the Examination	Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)
Exam Date	18 December 2022
Conducting body	The Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs)
Frequency	Once a Year
Exam Level	National Level
Purpose	Admission to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in law.
Exam timings	2 PM – 4PM (Might be subjected to changes if needed)
Duration	120 Minutes i.e. 2 Hours
Mode	Pen and Paper
Medium	English
Total no. of questions	CLAT UG- 150 Questions CLAT PG- 120 Questions
Maximum Marks	CLAT UG- 150 Marks CLAT PG- 120 Marks
Question Type	MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions)
Participating Institutions	22 NLUs except NLU, Delhi and other private institutions.
Negative Marking	Yes, Deduction of 0.25 for every wrong answer.

CLAT 2023 Exam Pattern

To prepare appropriately, you should be familiar with the CLAT exam format before taking the test. As a result, the Consortium shares the CLAT exam pattern each year. The CLAT exam pattern is available to candidates on the Consortium’s official website.

CLAT 2023: UG Exam Pattern

Maximum Marks	150
Duration	2:00 Hours (120 minutes)
No of Sections	5 (English Language, Current Affairs, including General Knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, Quantitative Techniques)
Question Type	MCQ
No. of questions	150 Questions
Marking Scheme	There will be negative marking. 1 Mark for correct answers. 0.25 mark deduction for wrong answers.

CLAT 2023: PG Exam Pattern

1.	Duration	2 hours
2.	Mode	Offline Mode
3.	Type of Questions	MCQ type, Passage based Questions
4.	Number of Questions	120
5.	Sections	Constitutional Law Other Law Subjects, including Contracts, torts, Criminal Law, International Law, IPR and Jurisprudence.
6.	Total Marks	150 marks
7.	Marking Scheme	For correct response: 1 mark For incorrect response: -0.25 mark

In addition to these exam-related specifics, subject-specific weighting has also been disclosed.

CLAT 2023: UG Section wise Marks and Question Distribution

Subject Area	Expected no. of Questions	Weightage in Percentage
English Language	28-32	20%
Current Affairs, including General Knowledge	35-39	25%
Legal Reasoning	35-39	25%
Logical Reasoning	28-32	20%
Quantitative Techniques	13-17	10%

CLAT 2023: PG Section-wise Marks and Question Distribution

S.No.	Subjects	Questions (approx.)	CLAT total marks	Weightage
	Constitutional Law	60	60	50%
	Other Laws such as 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	60	60	50%
	TOTAL	120	120	100%

 

CLAT 2023 UG: Eligibility Criteria

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA	GUIDELINES BY CONSORTIUM
Qualifying Examination	10+2 or an equivalent examination from a recognised board or institution
Minimum Qualifying marks	For General / OBC / PWD / NRI / PIO / OCI category candidates: 45% or its equivalent grade in Qualifying examination. For SC/ST candidates: 40% or its equivalent grade in Qualifying examination.
Age	No upper age limit

 

CLAT 2023 PG: Eligibility Criteria

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA	GUIDELINES BY CONSORTIUM
Qualifying Examination	An LL.B Degree or an equivalent degree/ examination from a recognized university.
Minimum Qualifying marks	50% marks or its equivalent grade for General/OBC/NRI/PIO/OCI candidates. 45% marks or equivalent for SC/ST candidates.
Age	No upper age limit

 

CLAT 2023 Syllabus: Undergraduate

The syllabus is laid up in sections. The following list includes each section’s key points.

 

Section I- English Language

This section intends to check the comprehension abilities and the candidate’s command of the English language. So the candidates must focus on the following aspects:

1. Comprehension and Language Skills
2. Making inferences and conclusions.
3. Summarisation
4. Identification of varied arguments and perspectives.
5. Meaning-making.

 

Section II- General Knowledge and Current Affairs

This section intends to check candidates’ general knowledge of the following themes:

1. Important and recent events (Indian and Global)
2. Arts and Culture
3. International affairs
4. Historical happenings are still relevant and significant.

 

Section III- Legal Reasoning

This section will check the candidates for their legal aptitude. The focus areas of the legal reasoning section are:

1. General knowledge about current legal and moral issues.
2. Identification and inferring of rules and principles given in the passages.
3. Understanding the impact of changing rules and principles on various fact situations.
4. Application of rules and principles to real-life situations.

 

Some important topics under this section include: 

• Indian Constitution – Fundamental Rights, Duties, Judiciary, Parliament, Directive Principles of State Policy, Local governments
• Important amendments and provisions
• Important judgments
• Current legal affairs

 

Section IV- Logical Reasoning

Under the logical reasoning section, the following abilities are assessed:

1. Identification of arguments and their premises.
2. Concluding.
3. Draw similarities and differences
4. Critical analysis of patterns of reasoning.
5. Assessing situation-specific conclusions.
6. Determine arguments’ validity by identifying similar grounds and differences amongst arguments.

 

Some important topics under this section are:

• Analogies
• Series
• Seating arrangement
• Syllogisms
• Blood relations
• Logical sequences and matching
• Calendars and clocks

 

Section V- Quantitative Techniques

This section requires the candidate to:

1. Work with numerical information provided or stated in the given passages. It includes deriving, making inferences and manipulating numbers.
2. Application of elementary mathematical concepts and operations.

 

Some of the important topics of this section include:

• Ratios and proportions,
• Basic algebra,
• Mensuration
• Statistical estimation
• Algebra

 

CLAT 2023 Syllabus: Postgraduate 

The CLAT examination has no set syllabus. The applicants must concentrate on a few key topics and disciplines as they prepare for the entrance exam.

Judicial process

• Nature of judicial process
• Constitutional amendments
• The judicial process in India
• Special dimensions

 

Constitutionalism

• Principles of constitutionalism
• New challenges to constitutionalism
• Federalism as an aspect of constitutionalism
• Justice delivery system in India

 

Legal research and methodology

• Precepts
• Techniques and methodology
• Hypothesis and research work
• Conduct of research

 

Law and social transformation in India

• Law and social change
• Women and the law
• Community and the law
• Children and the law
• Religion

 

Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

• Protection and enforcement of human rights in India
• Human rights and jurisprudence
• International human rights law
• Human rights education

 

Alternative Dispute Resolution

• Arbitration law in India
• Evolution and concept of ADR
• International commercial arbitration
• Practical training in ADR
• Mediation, Conciliation and negotiation

 

Intellectual Property Rights

• Historical background
• Copyright law & neighbouring law
• Patents law
• Law relating to designs and geographical indications
• Law relating trademarks
• Nature, emergence and development of IPRs

 

International Trade Law

• Regulation of IT in India
• WTO and International trade law
• International sale & carriage of goods
• Settlement of IT disputes
• International commercial arbitration
• International investment laws

 

Corporate Law

• Consumer protection laws
• Law of corporate management & governance
• Law of corporate finance & securities regulations
• Corporate taxation
• Regulation of capital markets & foreign investment
• Banking & insurance laws

 

Go to the Consortium’s official website to find out more information on the CLAT 2023 test. You must frequently visit the website to keep up with the CLAT 2023 exam updates.