Preparation for big changes in CLAT exam, know what will be the impact on students?

In fact, last year, the Supreme Court had raised questions on the way the examination was conducted by commenting strongly on some of the questions asked in the CLAT exam and the mistakes made in the answer keys. After this, the advisory board headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Indu Malhotra constituted a five-member expert committee. The committee has prepared its report and submitted it to the consortium. Now this report has been made public and suggestions have been sought from students, teachers and legal experts till 31 August 2026.

In the meeting of the Governing Body of the Consortium on July 18, 2026, it was also decided that the CLAT UG and PG 2027 examinations will be conducted as per the existing syllabus and examination pattern. That means candidates will not need to change their method of preparation. Although the team preparing the paper may make limited improvements in the quality and format of questions keeping in mind some recommendations of the expert committee, there will be no change in the basic structure of the examination.

Candidates will get the same old pattern in the examinations to be held next year. The exam will be computer based and its duration will be 2 hours, the question paper will have 120 MCQs. One mark will be given for the correct answer, whereas there will be a negative marking of 0.25 marks for the wrong answer. In the exam, questions will be asked from 5 sections, which will include English Language, Current Affairs, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Techniques. In the exam, questions will be asked in 5 areas in which English language will be from Current Affairs, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Techniques.

The committee says that in the current CLAT exam, there are many questions whose answers are given directly in the passage. This tests only the ability of the students to find information rather than their analytical ability. At the same time, the General Knowledge section is sometimes based on very general facts and sometimes on more difficult facts, due to which the purpose of the examination is affected. For this reason, the committee has suggested a new structure of examination for CLAT UG.

The biggest change the committee has suggested is to completely remove the General Knowledge and Current Affairs sections. At the same time, it was recommended to change the existing section of English language and create a Language and Comprehension section, so that the candidates’ language understanding and effective communication ability can be evaluated.

Apart from this, the report has recommended creating a new aptitude section by combining Legal Reasoning and Logical Reasoning. The committee suggests that only 10 to 15 questions should be asked in each section. This will reduce the pressure on students to solve more questions in less time and their analytical ability can be better evaluated.

The report also suggests adding a subjective essay in the examination for the first time, so that the writing ability, reasoning and expression of the candidates can be evaluated.