The Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) on Wednesday published the long-awaited report of the Expert Committee on reforms to the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), deciding that no changes will be introduced in the pattern or syllabus of CLAT 2027.
The Governing Body instead resolved to retain the existing examination format for the upcoming admission cycle and consider the committee’s recommendations for implementation from CLAT 2028 after further consultation.
Although the Consortium has kept the examination pattern and syllabus unchanged for CLAT 2027, it has directed the Convenor and paper setters to take into account the committee’s observations regarding the quality, drafting and accuracy of questions while preparing the next examination.
The Expert Committee was constituted on September 15, 2025, to undertake a comprehensive review of the CLAT examination process. It was co-convened by Professor Dev Saif Gangjee of the University of Oxford and Professor Tarunabh Khaitan of the London School of Economics. The other members included Professor Shyamkrishna Balganesh of Columbia Law School, Professor Pritam Baruah of BML Munjal University and Professor Surabhi Ranganathan of the University of Cambridge. After inviting public feedback between October 15 and November 4, 2025, the committee submitted an interim report in November 2025, finalised its recommendations in January 2026 and submitted its final report to the Consortium’s Advisory Board on February 2, 2026.
In its covering letter, the committee had requested that the report be published at the earliest so that reforms could be implemented from CLAT 2027. However, the Consortium published the report more than five months later, effectively postponing the proposed reforms. The Governing Body has also invited comments and suggestions from students, academicians, legal experts and the general public until August 31, 2026. The recommendations, together with public feedback, will be examined by a separate committee expected to be constituted by the Office of the Chief Justice of India before any decision is taken for CLAT 2028.
One of the committee’s principal recommendations is the professionalisation of the paper-setting process. It observed that the existing system, under which responsibility for preparing the examination paper rotates annually among Convenor universities, has resulted in recurring errors affecting the quality and credibility of the examination. The report referred to several flawed questions from previous CLAT papers, including an English comprehension question where the correct answer merely repeated a sentence from the passage, a General Knowledge question on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre that admitted multiple plausible answers, and a legal question on online defamation in which none of the available options was correct, ultimately leading to its withdrawal.
The committee also criticised several postgraduate questions for testing rote memorisation rather than analytical legal reasoning. It cited examples requiring candidates to identify the year of establishment of a tribunal, translate Latin legal maxims or recall judicial dissenting opinions without assessing legal reasoning or application of law.
The report further noted that the length of reading passages in CLAT has increased substantially in recent years without any corresponding increase in examination time. According to the committee, candidates were required to read approximately 5,404 words across 12 passages in CLAT 2023, nearly 8,954 words across 24 passages in CLAT 2024 and around 8,413 words in CLAT 2025, all within the same two-hour examination window. The committee observed that the increased reading burden adversely affected the assessment of reasoning ability.
Referring to judicial scrutiny of the examination process, the committee noted that the Supreme Court had expressed concerns regarding the conduct of CLAT as early as 2018. It also referred to the Supreme Court’s 2025 judgment concerning disputed CLAT questions, in which the Court expressed serious dissatisfaction with the casual and careless manner in which certain questions had been framed.
To improve institutional standards, the committee recommended establishing a permanent Exam Board responsible for reviewing every examination paper before finalisation, strengthening the Consortium Secretariat and constituting a time-bound Steering Committee to supervise implementation of reforms. It also recommended introducing standardised drafting guidelines, peer review of questions and either engaging professional external agencies through a transparent tender process or developing specialised in-house expertise for paper setting.
The committee expressly advised against entrusting the National Testing Agency (NTA) with preparing CLAT question papers. Relying on the findings of a Parliamentary Standing Committee, it noted that at least five out of fourteen competitive examinations conducted by the NTA had encountered significant operational issues, making it unsuitable to assume responsibility for CLAT.
The report proposes a comprehensive restructuring of the undergraduate examination by reducing the existing five sections to three. Under the proposed format, Logical Reasoning and Legal Aptitude would merge the current Legal Reasoning and Logical Reasoning sections to assess analytical reasoning, application of legal principles and deduction from factual situations without requiring prior legal knowledge. The Language and Comprehension section would replace the existing English Language paper and evaluate comprehension, inference, tone, reasoning and analytical reading rather than grammar or vocabulary. Quantitative Techniques would be retained with emphasis on interpreting numerical information, data patterns and logical analysis instead of advanced mathematical concepts. Each section would contain approximately 10 to 15 questions while retaining the existing two-hour duration.
The committee has recommended completely removing the General Knowledge and Current Affairs section from the undergraduate examination, observing that such questions often reward memorisation and coaching rather than aptitude and legal reasoning. It also considered introducing an essay-writing component but decided against it at present due to concerns regarding fair, objective and scalable evaluation of tens of thousands of responses. However, it recommended revisiting the proposal after three years.
For the postgraduate CLAT examination, the committee recommended retaining the three revised aptitude-based sections with reduced weightage while introducing two additional components. The proposed Legal Knowledge section would assess legal developments from the two years immediately preceding the examination and focus on doctrinal understanding and application rather than factual recall. It also recommended introducing a constructed-response Problem Question section requiring candidates to solve one out of three legal problems drawn from areas such as constitutional law, private law, commercial law or international law.
The committee also examined concerns relating to accessibility and the growing dependence on coaching institutions. It observed that coaching centres largely provide examination-related information rather than aptitude training and suggested that the Consortium itself should make such resources freely available.
It recommended regularly publishing sample papers, explanatory videos, model answers and other preparatory material, including resources in languages other than English, to improve accessibility and reduce dependence on commercial coaching. The committee also endorsed greater collaboration with organisations such as Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) to widen access to legal education. However, it noted that issues concerning conducting CLAT in regional languages are presently sub judice and therefore fell outside its mandate.
The recommendations were formulated after considering 667 responses received during the public consultation process, along with suggestions from Vice-Chancellors of participating National Law Universities. While the Consortium has decided against implementing any structural reforms for CLAT 2027, the report provides a detailed roadmap for overhauling the examination process from CLAT 2028 with the objective of improving transparency, academic rigour, fairness, institutional accountability and assessment of genuine legal aptitude.
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