CLAT 2023: Updates, Application, Dates, Syllabus, Result, Fees & More

Last Updated on August 5, 2023 by Vishnu Nambiar

Are you all set to crack CLAT examination in 2023? If yes, this post will be of help to you. Here, readers will find all the important details that they need to know about this competitive exam. In this post, readers will find the following details – CLAT 2023 schedule, basic details, important dates, eligibility criteria, application process, fees, syllabus and more.

 

The students can get access for admission in the several governmental and private law colleges nationwide according to the scores of CLAT. As a candidate, you should always remember that cracking this entrance test is mandatory for you to get an admission to a law college.

 

This article will help you to understand the whole process of filling up the application form for CLAT 2023.

 

About the CLAT Examination

CLAT is also known as Common Law Admission Test. It is an entrance exam which is conducted and managed on a rotational basis by the 19 National Law Universities all over the country. All the candidates irrespective of where they belong to have to crack this entrance exam to study law in any college. The score of CLAT determines the candidate’s merit and he/ she can get admission.

 

Important Dates of CLAT 2023

Following are the probable dates and the time periods when an event related to the CLAT examination should occur. You should remember that these dates are just tentative and it may change anytime obviously with a prior notice. Each candidate aspiring for this examination should get in sync with all the news bulletins published by the authorized websites.

 

You should remember always to minutely follow each of the news related to CLAT, which is published. For your convenience as a candidate, all the events and their projected period of commencement are given below in a nutshell.

 

Events related to CLAT 2023	Tentative Dates of commencement
The release of the Admission Notice	December 3rd Week, 2020
Availability of the Application Form	January, 2023
Last Date of submitting the Application Form	March 2023 till midnight
Admit Cards Availability	April 3rd week 2023
CLAT Entrance Exam	May 12th, 2023
Answer keys to be Published	May 3rd week 2023
Representation period	Till the end of 3rd week of May 21
Amended Answer Key Upload	May 4th week 2023
Merit List/Result	Final Week of May 2023
Indicative Seat Allocation Publication	1st Week of June 2023
Payment of Counseling fee	Till June 2nd week 2023

 

Make sure to go through these dates by heart in case you are applying for CLAT entrance test.

 

CLAT Eligibility

There is some desired eligibility with which you as an aspiring candidate should be well aware of. These criteria will be maintained strictly by the board when providing a candidate an allowance of admission. The features of the eligibility are given below:

• As an aspiring candidate willing to appear for the Common Law Admission Test you should be an Indian citizen. In case you are an NRI candidate or a sponsored NRI candidate you are also eligible to appear for the same Exam.
• The NRI or the NRI sponsored candidates who are willing to appear for the examination should remember that they can apply for admission only to such NLUs where their category is admitted.
• In case if you are a Foreign Candidate by nationality, it is not needful to appear for the CLAT exam. You can directly apply to the various institutions.
• There is no upper age limit for a candidate to appear in the said examination. No criterion for the upper age limit will be concentrated upon by the board in case of both UG integrated course or the PG course.

 

There are some qualifying criteria in terms of education which each candidate should fulfill. This is a mandatory criterion.

 

Educational Qualification (For UG Integrated Law Course)

Every candidate should have passed the 10+2 examination from any recognized board in India to be eligible to apply for the examination. You should have secured minimum marks of 45% in aggregate if you belong to the General Cast/Other Backward Class/ Differently Able person. If you belong to SC/ST category, you have to secure 40% marks in aggregate in the said exam.

 

Educational Qualification (For PG Law Course)

For getting admission in the PG law courses you need to pass the LLB course or the 5 years integrated LLB (Hon.) course. In case you pass any equivalent course you are also applicable for admission. The minimum marks you need to secure if you belong to the General Cast/ Other Backward Class/ Differently Able Person is 55% in total. 50% marks in total are what you need to secure in the said exam if you belong to the SC/ST category.

 

If you are a student who is aspiring to appear for the entrance test of UG and PG law courses this year and is going to appear for the qualifying exam, you have shown evidence. Given the valid evidence, you will be applicable to sit for the exam.

 

CLAT 2023 Application Form

All candidates are informed hereby that the application forms will only be available through the online mode only. The registration period for CLAT 2023 will be on from 1st January to 31st March 2023.

 

Each candidate will be given only one chance to fill out an application. You should always be keen towards filling up the application form with minute concentration.

 

Generally like every other online application fill-up procedures, you will need to upload a clean and clear picture of the signature. The dimensions of the scanned picture should be 140×60 pixels and the size of the file should be 10kb to 20kb. For the photograph which you will need to scan and upload the dimensions should be 200×230 with size 20kb to 50kb.

 

You should remember as a candidate that it is needless to send any hard copy to the office of CLAT. Once you have filled up the form no alteration can be done on the form.

 

The facilities of corrections are not yet announced by the board. Even if the correction facilities are allowed there will be only one chance of correction. For very few entries, the correction can be done. In case you still have something to correct in the application form the window might be open. You can correct a few entries like your name, gender, address, category status, date of birth and qualification details. It will always be better to avoid this kind of a situation. For this you need to fill will your application form with care.

 

CLAT Exam Pattern

As an aspiring candidate, you should always know the pattern of the examination distinctively while appearing for it. Following are some salient features of the CLAT examination pattern.

 

CLAT UG Exam Pattern

• The said examination will have the duration of 2 hours.
• There will be 200 questions asked of each candidate.
• All the questions asked in the examination will be objective type. Each question will have 4 options for the answers, out of them one will be the correct answer for the question. Each student is expected to know how an OMR sheet is to be used.
• The question paper will be set only in the English language. The total marks of the paper will be of 200 marks.
• As per the marking schemes are concerned every question will carry a sum of 1 mark. A sum of 0.25 marks will be deducted for each incorrect answer.

 

The marks distributions for each subject are as follows:

Subjects	Number of Questions	Marks Allotted Per Section
General Knowledge and Current Affairs	50	50
Comprehension and English Language	40	40
Numerical Abilities as Elementary Mathematics	20	20
Logical Reasoning	40	40
Legal Aptitude	50	50
TOTAL	200	200

 

CLAT PG Exam Pattern

Following is the pattern of the CLAT PG exam pattern. Aspiring candidates are requested to ponder the facts minutely.

• The duration of the examination will be of 2 hours.
• The total marks which the question paper would contain will be 150 marks.
• Every question will be objective type in this examination. MCQ style will be followed by the board.
• The question paper will be set only in the English language.
• One mark will be awarded to you in case of every correct answer. A sum of 0.25 marks will be deducted in case of every wrong answer.

 

For your convenience, the marks distribution for each of the papers is given below:

SUBJECTS	No of QUESTIONS	MARKS ALLOTED
Constitutional Law	50	50
Jurisprudence	50	50
Subjects like Trots, Criminal Laws, International Laws, Human Rights, Environment law	50	50
TOTAL:	150	150

 

CLAT 2023 Cut-off

The cutoff is the minimum score which each candidate should secure to get admission to the various law colleges. Like all other examinations, the cutoff for CLAT also depends upon the number of students appearing for the examination, the difficulty of the examination, availability of seats in different colleges. The cutoff may help you to get a clear idea about the fact whether you will be able to get an admission in any law college or not.

 

In the previous years, many NLUs were there which ranked top in the cut off list like National Law School of India University, National Law Institute University, West Bengal National University of Judicial Sciences etc.

 

You should be aware of when the board is announcing the cutoff marks. It is generally announced by the board after the result declaration. For the year 2023, the CLAT board can announce the cut-off marks through the online mode. The projected time when the cut of is to be announced is in the month of May 2023.

 

Syllabus of CLAT 2023

It is very important for you to note that a healthy entrance exam is only possible if the total syllabus is covered and all the subjects related to it are covered extensively. In this part of the article, you will be able to know about the subjects which you need to study minutely to succeed in the entrance exam. The syllabus is unchanged from what it was the previous years. It is very important for every candidate to study analytically and clear all doubtful concepts while preparing for the examination.

 

CLAT UG Integrated Entrance Exam Syllabus

The CLAT UG entrance exam syllabus comprises of the subjects like comprehension and English language, GK and Current Affairs, elementary mathematics and numerical abilities, logical reasoning and legal Aptitude.

 

You can get an extensive knowledge form the next part about each of the topics and know what all the fields you need to cover.

 

Comprehension and English language: Comprehension is like a paragraph and some questions adjoined to it, which will be provided to you. The questions will relate to the paragraph itself. You need to make a thorough search in the paragraph and give the correct answers to the questions which are asked.

 

The questions related to grammar will be to test your basic knowledge of the English language. The various types of questions which can be asked are fill in the blanks with nouns, pronouns, adverbs and adjectives, jumbled words, cloze passages may also come.

 

GK and Current Affairs: The questions which are asked in this section are to test your general awareness to the society and the knowledge of whatever is happening around the world. A major part of the questions in this paper relates to static GK. The global event of vital importance is asked in this paper. Apart from this several numbers of questions related to national affairs are asked in this paper too. You should always consider studying and be aware of the events happening in the span of one year till the exam.

 

Logical Reasoning: This paper will test your ability to rectify all abnormal arguments, identify the correct patterns and solve logical links and puzzles. The fields of questions this paper will cover are, coding-decoding, solving problems upon blood relations, missing series sums, syllogism, analogs etc.

 

Mathematical Ability and numerical: Generally this paper consists of the elementary mathematics of the 10th level. All generalized fields of mathematics which are studied till the 10th standard will be asked in this field. The fields include arithmetic problems on profit-loss, percentage, algebra, simple and compound interest, trigonometry, simple geometry, problems on height and distance, statistics, probability, measurement, time and work etc.

 

Legal Aptitude: This is one of the main and the most vital papers you have to face while appearing for CLAT. Most number of questions generally comes from this paper. This is the only paper you have to exclusively take preparations to appear for CLAT. If you are good in this particular paper, you have a higher chance of cracking the said examination. The questions come generally from the propositions of a situation of a legal problem. You would need to assume a proposition and lead to the settlement of the problem.

 

CLAT PG Course Syllabus

For the CLAT PG course syllabus, you have the papers of Constitutional Laws, Jurisprudence and various case studies upon trots, criminal laws, and international laws. Broadly, the total syllabus for your UG course should be prepared by you thoroughly while appearing for the PG entrance exam for CLAT.

 

CLAT 2023 Admit Card

In this segment, you will able to know about the Admit cards of the said exams. You will be able to generate your admit cards also known as hall tickets via the online platform. You will need to log in to your account to get it. No, admit cards will be generated by offline mode or posted to any candidates place. Make sure that you preserve you admit card with care as long as your admission process goes. It is the proof that you have actually appeared for the examination. Don’t forget that it is mandatory to take your admit cards to the examination center.

 

The tentative period of publishing the admit cards is during the final week of April in 2023. You can, however, be able to download till the date of your examination. As per the news till now, The CLAT 2023 examination will be held on May.

 

Apart from the admit card you will need to take any one of your valid photo identity proof by you viz. Voter card/Aadhar Card or PAN card.

 

For your knowledge, the procedure of generating the admit card is given below.

• Firstly you have to visit the official website so as to download the admit card. You will be able to see a new page. In this page, you have to enter vital information such as your registered number, password and security code very carefully. Then, you will need to click on the ‘login’ button. Next, your admit card will appear on your screen. After that, you have to take a printout of the admit card by clicking on to the print option. Finally, you have to leave the page.
• It will always be better for you to take a few copies of the admit card. Even if you lose one, the copies may help you to get on a clear position.
• All candidates are requested to check if all the details such as Candidate’s Name, DOB, Category, Father’s Name, Mother’s Name, Signature, Photograph, Exam Date and Timing, Roll and Regd. Number, Centre of Exam, Course and General Instructions are printed on it.

 

It is very important for you to minutely look out for every feature in the admit card.

 

Results of CLAT 2023

As per the news for results, you should know that the tentative time is the final week of May 2023 when the CLAT Results can be published. You as a candidate can only be able to check your result via the online mode by giving your email id and password on the CLAT result portal. No offline publications for the results are to be done. It is vitally important for you to download the scorecard for the procedures of admissions to run flawlessly.

 

Counseling of CLAT 2023

Counseling is the process for which each candidate waits eagerly. Generally, just after the declaration of the results, the process of counseling is started. The CLAT board will release the first indicative seat allocation list according to the merit and the preference of the successful students.  The proceedings of the CLAT counseling are to be done by the board in the following manner.

• The board will prepare a platform for centralized counseling for the admission of the candidates in both the UG & PG courses.
• There will be four rounds of counseling.
• It will be in the month of June 2023 when the processes of the payment of fees and the exercising options will start.
• As a candidate, you should pay a sum of RS.50, 000 as counseling free. It will be adjusted at the time of admission.
• The board will mandatorily allot the seats to the candidates according to their merits and preferences. The denoting features for the allotment of seats for a student will be the CLAT rank, order of preference, number of seats available in a college etc.
• It is expected from all candidates that they will report in the various NLUs with a well-balanced admission fee. Generally, there are 4 lists of allotments of a seat which the board publishes.
• There are certain admissions formalities which each candidate needs to follow. They have to report to their respected NLUs with the balance amount and other charges. Then, the verifications are to be done. Each candidate has to produce their certificates due to the verification. In case, a candidate is found with any misinformation which happens in contrast to the originals and the data which is entered by the candidate, the candidature will be instantly canceled. Legal actions can also be taken against the candidates.
• All authentic certificates and documents related to cast and disabilities are also to be mandatorily produced by the candidate during the time of admission in the NLUs.

 

Tips to prepare for the CLAT Entrance Exam

There are certain tips which you can follow as a candidate to get success in the CLAT Entrance Exam.

 

Sticking to the basics and nurturing the facts can be helpful for you a lot. Always remember that as a candidate, you should have a strong knowledge of the primary things of every subject you prepare. You should always take extra care while preparing the elementary things about a subject because the exam type is objective. As a result, there would be much more chances that the questions can come from the basics.

 

Eliminating all the doubts comes in the second place whenever you think of preparing for an entrance test. You should look forward to cleaning up all the major doubts that you have about a subject. You can always take coaching which is available in the numerous cities across India.

 

Doing regular revisions is something which you must not forget at any time. This can help you in a wide way to keep a track about everything you need to know. As there are papers in the entrance test which relates to skill development, you should always look forward to minimizing your flaws regarding something.

 

Taking your own mock tests can help you lead the race extensively. Always consider doing it, while you are going through the preparations. Coverage and a full-proof analysis are what you can do with the sample papers that you get. This will help you in getting accustomed to the pattern of the question which comes in the CLAT examination.

 

The time management factor is also something which you need to focus upon. You should always remember that without proper time management factor you cannot make any difference in your knowledge no matter how you work hard. Self-belief is something you can develop by focusing on your studies extensively. In this way you can keep your panic away as confidence within you will grow that you have covered the whole syllabus properly.

 

FAQs

Q: Will I be able to give more than one law exam in a year?

Ans. Yes, there is no problem if you appear for a few exams of law which is held in the same year.

Q: Is there a way I can appear for CLAT after graduation?

Ans. It will be better for you to appear for CLAT for the 3 years course if you have already completed your graduation. In case you are a law graduate already, you can appear for the PG course.

Q: What is the percentage of marks in the 10+2 which I need to get to be eligible to appear for CLAT? I am an ST candidate!

Ans. In case you are an ST candidate the minimum percentage you need is 40% in aggregate in your 10+2 examination.