Common Law Entrance Test on May 11

Bhopal, Mar 09: The seven leading law universities including the National Law University, Bhopal are organizing Common Law Entrance Test (CLAT) this year on May 11. The process has been undertaken according to the UGC and Union HRD Ministry guidelines. NLIU Bhopal has reserved 50 percent seats for the state candidates. National Law Universities of Bhopal, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Raipur, Gandhinagar and Bangalore would take part in the test.

National Law University Bangalore being the oldest one would hold the first entrance test at the national level. From next year onwards the other universities on seniority basis would conduct the test. Chankya NLU Patna, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia NLU Lucknow and Rajiv Gandhi NLU Patiyala would use the test scores of CLAT for allotting admissions for the sessions 2008-09. These were left out of the proceedings as they joined the test formulation process in later stages only.

Till now each Law School conducts its own admission test and admits students as per its regulations resulting in aspirants writing number of admission tests and this multiplicity of admission tests has been causing tremendous hardship both physically and financially to the candidates taking these tests, said Professor Surya Prakash Director in charge NLIU Bhopal. He added that we offer 80 seats for the course and added that this number differs in other law schools.

The issue of separate entrance tests drew national attention following the Writ Petition filed by Varun Bhagat against the Union of India and various National Law Schools in the Supreme Court of India in 2006. In the course of hearing, the Chief Justice of India directed the Union of India to consult the National Law Schools with a view to evolving a scheme for common admission test. After initial meetings, these seven National Law Schools signed a Memorandum of Understanding on November 23, 2007 committing them to hold the common admission test. NLIU Bhopal, PRO informed that this integrated 5 year BA LLB course is open for intermediate students from all the streams. He added that taking into account the career options the course offered might help candidates in making careers in corporate sector, banks, semi government sectors etc. Till now the MP Professional Examination Board was conducting the test for NLIU Bhopal. The question paper pattern is likely to correspond to the NLSIU pattern in previous years.