The Expert Committee constituted by the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) to recommend reforms to the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2027 submitted its report to the Consortium's Advisory Board on February 2, 2026.
4 months since, the Consortium has not made the report public and has communicated any proposed changes to aspirants.
CLAT 2027 is tentatively scheduled for December 2026.
Prof Tarunabh Khaitan, Co-Chair of the Expert Committee and Professor of Public Law at the London School of Economics (LSE), confirmed the submission of the report in a written response to Bar & Bench. He also disclosed that the Committee had urged the Consortium to release the report. The request appears to have gone unacknowledged.
"In the cover letter to which we appended our report, we had urged publication of the Report. I am not privy to any reasons why the Report has not been made public yet," Khaitan said.
When Bar & Bench contacted the Consortium, the official response was,
"There are no updates as of now. Changes/updates if any will be published on the website."
President of the Consortium and Vice-Chancellor of GNLU Gandhinagar Prof S Shanthakumar; Vice-President and MNLU Mumbai Vice-Chancellor Prof Dilip Ukey; and Secretary-Treasurer and NLSIU VC Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy did not respond to queries at the time of publication.
The Expert Committee was constituted following the 4th Advisory Board Meeting of the Consortium, chaired by former Supreme Court Justice Indu Malhotra. Its mandate was to suggest medium and long-term reforms to both the undergraduate and postgraduate CLAT examinations, to be implemented from CLAT 2027.
The Committee brought together five academics from institutions in India, the United Kingdom and the United States:
Prof Dev Saif Gangjee, University of Oxford (Co-Chair)
Prof Tarunabh Khaitan, LSE (Co-Chair)
Prof. Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Columbia Law School
Prof Pritam Baruah, BML Munjal University
Prof Surabhi Ranganathan, University of Cambridge
The panel's terms of reference covered question quality, the structure of the paper, the syllabus and a review of comparable examinations like the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and Law National Aptitude Test (LNAT). The Consortium had also invited public feedback through a Google form open from October 15 to November 4, 2025.
Earlier this year, a wave of CLAT aspirants had contacted Prof Khaitan using a common template seeking updates on the reform process. In his reply to them, Prof Khaitan confirmed the February 2 submission, acknowledged the uncertainty this created and made clear that the ball was now entirely in the Consortium's court.
"Any further action on the report, including decisions about its consideration, implementation, or whether it will be made public, now rests entirely with the Consortium," he wrote to aspirants.
He also asked them to inform whoever was circulating the template that there was "nothing the expert committee can do in this regard" and that all queries should go to the Consortium directly.
For the thousands of students preparing for CLAT 2027, the silence is more than just an inconvenience. If the Consortium decides to implement any of the Committee's recommendations - changes to the syllabus, the structure of the paper, or the nature of questions - aspirants would need adequate time to change their preparation.
Registration for CLAT 2027 is expected to open in August 2026, which means students may begin applying before they know what kind of exam they are signing up for.
Piyush Kumar, a CLAT aspirant who wrote to the Consortium seeking clarity, put the concern plainly:
"With only a few months remaining before the next CLAT examination, many students are facing uncertainty regarding the pattern and future direction of the exam. This lack of clarity makes preparation difficult for thousands of aspirants who dedicate significant time and effort to this highly competitive examination."
Kumar added that he was not advocating for any particular reform, only asking for timely communication.