Lukewarm response from State for CLAT

While the number of aspirants taking the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for admission into prestigious law schools has increased by good percentage this year, the response from Karnataka seems to be lukewarm compared to other states.

A total of 45,134 candidates have applied to write the test scheduled for May 10. Of these, 39,686 candidates are seeking admission into undergraduate program and 5,448 are for the postgraduate program. However, only 991 applications have been submitted from Karnataka, which constitutes two per cent of the total number of applications. A total of 9,628 candidates (21 pc) have applied from Uttar Pradesh, while Delhi and Rajasthan have 4,465 and 4,414 CLAT aspirants respectively.

However, only 417 applications have been received from Andhra Pradesh whereas it is 817 from the newly formed state, Telangana.

 CLAT is a gateway for admissions into 16 law universities that includes the likes of National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad and the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata, to name a few. Similar to the Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry into the IIMs, one of the 16 member universities conduct the CLAT. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow, (RMLNLU) is conducting the test this year.

Dr J D Gangwar, Joint Registrar, RMLNLU, said: “The number of applicants appearing for the test has increased from around 32,000 last year to above 40,000. 

States like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have always sent the highest number of candidates for the exam and this has been the trend over the years.” Prof R Venkata Rao, Vice-Chancellor, NLSIU, said: “The number of candidates who write the test from Karnataka has always been below 1,000. Delhi and UP always take the cake so far as the number of candidates writing the exam is concerned.” 

T V Manjunath, Registrar (Administration), Karnataka State Law University, Hubballi (KSLU), was of the opinion that the cost of the courses in these top institutes runs into several lakhs of rupees and this may be a major deterrent for many from the State from pursuing the course. Moreover, a number of options are available in the State itself. 

“There are as many as 92 colleges under KSLU and many of them offer the same courses at very affordable fees, say  Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 per annum. There have been cases where students have passed the CLAT but did not join colleges under it as they simply were not able to afford the fees,” he said.