With just 25 days remaining before the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2026, India’s most important legal entrance examination stands at a crossroads. For two consecutive years - 2024 and 2025 - the test has failed to live up to its purpose, eroding public confidence and demoralising thousands of sincere students.
While structural reform is essential, restoring fairness in CLAT 2026 is urgent. This open letter, therefore, aims to do two things:
Highlight the systemic lapses that have compromised the exam’s credibility
Present both immediate corrective steps for CLAT 2026 and the long-term framework already submitted to the Expert Committee for future implementation.
To reform CLAT, we must first remember it. The last 17 years tell a story not of one-off mistakes, but of recurring carelessness. Presented below is a factual chronology of controversies, mismanagement and lost opportunities.
The pattern is unmistakable. Whenever CLAT values competence over convenience, it works. Whenever it prioritises shortcuts over standards, it collapses.
The last two years have exposed deep structural rot. Despite an otherwise stable environment - no pandemic disruptions, no logistical crises - CLAT 2024 and 2025 turned out to be the weakest papers ever set.
Poor question design: Passages became factual and unimaginative, failing to assess reasoning.
Ambiguity: Many questions had multiple defensible answers.
Incorrect answer keys: Errors persisted even after formal objections.
Seating manipulation: Students applying together sat side by side, encouraging organised cheating.
Erosion of sectional purpose: The General Knowledge and Legal Reasoning sections lost their distinctive identity, effectively turning into English comprehension exercises.
The last point deserves special emphasis because it strikes at the heart of the exam’s design.
Dilution of the General Knowledge section
In the past two editions, almost every GK passage provided the answers within the text itself. Instead of testing awareness, the section tested paragraph scanning. This practice completely defeats the purpose of a GK component, which is to evaluate breadth of reading, factual retention and contextual understanding.
For CLAT 2026, since a GK section is already part of the format, it must regain its validity. Questions should draw from recent national and international events, major policy developments, awards and constitutional milestones — not from textually embedded clues. Until the section is eliminated next year as part of structural reform, it must serve its original function: to test knowledge, not reading.
Decline of fact-based Legal Reasoning
In CLAT 2021, 2022 and 2023, the Legal Reasoning section exemplified the exam’s spirit. Each passage introduced a principle of law, followed by factual situations requiring logical application. The outcome was a fair measure of legal aptitude — testing reasoning over rote.
However, in CLAT 2024 and 2025, this integrity collapsed. Out of roughly 32 questions, only 8–10 were genuinely fact-based; the rest merely asked candidates to locate sentences within the passage. It became an English comprehension test masquerading as legal reasoning.
For CLAT 2026, this must be corrected. The Legal Reasoning section must return to fact-based principle application, reinstating what once produced the most capable cohorts of NLU students.
The Consortium cannot rebuild CLAT overnight, but it can reclaim its credibility through disciplined intervention.
1. Independent question moderation
Every question must undergo three filters:
Academic validation: Legal and logical content accuracy reviewed by qualified professors.
Psychometric calibration: Pilot testing for difficulty balance and discrimination index.
Linguistic review: Precision, neutrality and absence of ambiguity.
This can be accomplished quickly through inter-university collaboration and digital moderation panels.
2. Restore the integrity of the GK Section
As noted, the GK section this year must focus on pure general knowledge - standalone factual or conceptual awareness questions, not passage-based comprehension. Topics should cover international relations, constitutional developments, law and policy, awards and current events.
In short, GK must once again mean knowledge.
3. Revive fact-based Legal Reasoning
Each Legal Reasoning question should:
Present a clear legal principle;
Offer factual scenarios;
Require the application to reach the correct answer.
This approach discourages guesswork and rewards analytical reasoning -the true skill set required of a law student.
4. Eliminate ambiguity
Every question must have one objectively provable answer derived from logic or text. Ambiguity is not intellectual rigour; it is error disguised as difficulty.
5. Randomisation and anti-cheating protocols
Roll numbers must be unlinked from the payment order, seating must be randomised and question-option sequences must differ across sets. Surveillance data should be retained for 90 days to allow an audit in case of complaints.
6. Transparent answer key system
Release the provisional answer key within 24 hours, allow a 48-hour objection window and publish reasoned responses before final results. Transparency is not optional; it is owed to the candidates.
7. Accountability for errors
If factual or interpretive errors are later found, identify and disqualify those responsible. Integrity begins with ownership.
CLAT’s deeper malaise lies not just in the quality of its questions, but in its philosophy.
Over-reliance on GK and Quantitative Aptitude: These favour recall, not reasoning.
Absence of Analytical Reasoning: Critical thinking remains under-tested.
Lack of psychometric validation: Difficulty levels fluctuate wildly year to year.
Unclear moderation processes: There is no formal three-tier quality check.
December scheduling: The seven-month gap before NLU admission breaks academic continuity.
Until these foundational flaws are addressed, no amount of operational efficiency will deliver justice.
The suggestions formally submitted to the Expert Committee outline a comprehensive reimagining of CLAT — one rooted in skills, rather than memory.
1. Objective of reform
To identify candidates who:
Read and comprehend complex texts in English;
Apply logic and principle to fact;
Analyse, infer and reason independently.
2. Proposed four-section structure
Such a structure would:
Enhance inclusivity and fairness across academic backgrounds.
Focus on skills relevant to law rather than rote GK.
Reduce coaching dependency and emphasise comprehension.
Restore precision and merit-based evaluation.
3. Question-quality framework
Difficulty calibration: 30% easy, 40% moderate, 30% difficult.
Three-stage review: Academic, psychometric and linguistic validation.
Zero ambiguity policy: Reject questions with multiple plausible answers.
Set randomisation: Full variation in question and options in order to prevent collusion.
4. Analytical Reasoning: The missing core
Introduce logical puzzles, sequencing, conditional arguments and deduction-based sets. This mirrors the LSAT model and tests mental agility without privileging mathematics.
5. Scheduling and continuity
CLAT should be restored to the second Sunday of May each year, aligning with:
Completion of Class XII Board exams.
University admission cycles.
Academic continuity for selected candidates.
The December schedule, though introduced post-COVID for logistical convenience, now results in a seven-month academic void. During this period, selected students lose discipline, motivation and intellectual rhythm before joining NLUs. Returning to May will:
1. Sustain momentum for students completing Class XII.
2. Permit a shorter and more purposeful transition to law school.
3. Reduce unnecessary anxiety and post-exam stagnation.
6. Implementation strategy
Conduct pilot testing for 2026–27.
Maintain oversight by the current expert panel.
Institutionalise annual public consultation with students and teachers.
7. Expected outcomes
Fairer access for students from non-science backgrounds.
Reduction in ambiguity and arbitrariness.
Enhanced academic quality and international credibility.
Creation of a stable, respected entrance framework comparable to LSAT and LNAT.
Reform cannot remain theoretical. Even in 2026, the Consortium can:
Adopt the three-level moderation model;
Introduce analytical reasoning pilot questions for data.
Apply randomisation algorithms in logistics;
Launch a transparent answer-key response protocol.
Every small act of discipline today builds legitimacy tomorrow.
CLAT is not just an examination; it is a young citizen’s first tryst with justice. If it feels arbitrary, it teaches cynicism; if it feels fair, it teaches faith.
The Consortium must remember that fairness is not a logistical task; it is a moral obligation. Law begins where process is respected. The way we conduct CLAT is itself a lesson in what the law stands for.
The newly formed Expert Committee - comprising Professors Gangjee, Khaitan, Balganesh, Baruah and Ranganathan - represents India’s finest legal intellect. Their deliberations will bear fruit only if the Consortium shows the same rigour in execution that they bring to policy.
CLAT 2026 is the Consortium’s opportunity for redemption. In 25 days, it can either repeat old errors or rebuild national trust if it:
Moderates questions independently and transparently;
Restores fact-based Legal Reasoning and true GK testing;
Implements randomisation and accountability.
It will send a powerful message: that merit and fairness are not negotiable.
The goal remains singular: to identify thinkers, not memorisers; reasoners, not reciters.
Let CLAT 2026 be remembered not as another mistake, but as the moment India’s law entrance system finally chose integrity over inertia.
Shashank Singhal has 16 years of experience mentoring students for the Common Law Admission Test.