– Mita Mukherjee

The last date to apply for the 2021 Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), for entry to national law schools has been extended to April 30, according to the Consortium of National Law Universities (CNLU).

The CNLU which conducts the CLAT had earlier said the deadline would be March 31. The 2021 CLAT will be held on June 13.

The 2021 CLAT will be pen and paper, N.K. Chakrabarti, vice-chancellor of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Kolkata, said.

In 2020 the test was held online because of the pandemic. But students had to sit at the examination venues and write the exam.

“This time the CLAT will be pen and paper. Students will have to go to the examination centres and write the exam,” Chakrabarti told EducationWorld.

The consortium had introduced the pen and paper exam in 2019.  Till 2018 the exam was held online but students had to write the test sitting at the examination centres.  

The consortium had earlier announced that the CLAT 2021 would be held on May 9. The exam was rescheduled because of the Central Board of Secondary Examinations.      

The CLAT is conducted to admit students to 22 national law universities across India. NUJS is one of the 22 institutions that admit students through CLAT.  

A notification issued by the consortium said: “ The Consortium of National Law Universities has extended last date for Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2021 online applications to Friday, April 30, 2021.”

 In the notification, the consortium has advised students who desire to appear in CLAT to keep visiting the consortium website: https://consortiumofnlus.ac.in/.

Nearly 73,000 candidates had enrolled for appearing in CLAT last year. Around 60,00 candidates out of the total 73,000 enrolled had written the CLAT 2020. Many students did not turn up at the examination because of Covid-19.

In 2021 the test is likely to be conducted from around 200 centres across the country.

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