The concept of National Law Universities to act as a pace-setter
and testing ground for bold experiments in legal education came up because
the pattern of legal education at traditional Universities was not found to be
satisfactory. In course of time, fourteen National Law Universities were
established to achieve excellence in legal education. These Universities are
national in the sense that substantial number of seats in all these
Universities are filled-up by students from all over India and the academic staff
are also recruited on all India basis. Till 2007 each National Law University
conducted tests separately in different Centres spread all over the country and
thousand of students after their 10+2 examinations took those multiple
admission tests at considerable expense and with lots of inconvenience. In
order to avoid the hardship faced by the candidates in appearing in a number
of tests for admission to different individual Universities initiative was taken for
conducting a Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for admission to different
National Law Universities. However, only eleven out of the fourteen National
Law Universities are part of CLAT.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed by seven National Law
Universities. The experience in CLAT-2008 has been that larger catchment area
provides better quality of students. Therefore, in addition to the CLAT founder
seven National Law Universities, the four other National Law Universities
joined CLAT in the year 2009. It was agreed by the Committee consisting of all
the Vice-Chancellors that the test would be conducted by the National Law
Universities by rotation. Accordingly, (CLAT)-2008 and CLAT- 2009 were
conducted by National Law School of India University, (NLSIU), Bangalore and
NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad respectively. At present following 11
National Law Universities are member of CLAT-2010 which are as follows:
* National Law School of India University, Bangalore.
* NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad
* National Law Institute University, Bhopal.
* West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.
* National Law University, Jodhpur.
* Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur.
* Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar.
* Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.
* Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala.
* Chanakya National Law University, Patna.
* National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi.
