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Class 12 Student Expected to Understand Legal Principles? What Delhi HC says about CLAT Legal Reasoning
One of the most controversial points in the CLAT UG hearing was around the legal reasoning section. Petitioners had argued that the CLAT legal reasoning questions contained questions that required the candidates to have prior knowledge of law, which was unfair to the candidates. The HC judgement on the matter is yet to come out as the court has reserved the verdict. In this article, find out what the HC said on the matter and whether legal knowledge is required in the Common Law Admission Test for the legal reasoning section.
What is the Consortium’s View About Legal Knowledge for CLAT Legal Reasoning?
The Consortium of National Law Universities explicitly mentions on its official website that candidates do not need any prior knowledge of law to attempt questions in the legal reasoning section of CLAT. However, it further mentions that candidates will benefit from a general awareness of legal and moral issues, which will enable them to apply these principles to fact scenarios given in the passage.
Questions Under Scanner in the CLAT 2025 Legal Reasoning
Some of the legal reasoning questions in CLAT 2025 that were flagged by the petitioners as being outside the syllabus and requiring prior knowledge of law are given below. As per the petition, these questions cannot be answered merely based on the information given in the passage.
Controversial Questions Under CLAT Legal Reasoning
Q. no (Set A) | Questions | Options |
67 | An agreement made by an adult but involving a minor child where the signatory is a minor child himself, this agreement would be: |
|
68 | Which of the following scenarios would most likely result in a void agreement? |
|
69 | An agreement made without consideration is generally: |
|
75 | A Bill becomes an Act only when |
|
What the Delhi HC Said About Controversial Questions in CLAT Legal Reasoning?
Taking cognisance of the candidate’s objections, the court had remarked about the ability of candidates to answer the above questions without prior knowledge of law.
On a question involving “consideration”, the Chief Justice had remarked that the consortium is testing the legal understanding of a Class 12th student, who would not know what consideration is. He wondered whether a class 12 student would know what consideration means under the Contract Law, but said it is for the experts to decide that.
The judges also remarked on the question involving the void and voidable contracts and expressed doubts about whether a class 12 student with no knowledge of law will be able to tell the difference between a void and a voidable contract.
Due to a sizeable number of objections received, the court had also advised the Consortium of NLUs to revisit the paper setting process. It asked the Consortium to hire better question paper setters for the next time.
What’s the Impact on Candidates?
The CLAT 2025 judgement is yet to come. It remains to be seen whether the court sides with the candidates or the Consortium. If the court deems the questions to be out of the syllabus, then the questions are likely to be withdrawn, which will again have a significant impact on the CLAT 2025 results. A further revision of the answers is likely to prolong the legal process as candidates or the consortium of NLUs can further challenge the verdict.
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Hello Dear Student,
You can get CLAT PG Previous Year Question Papers (last 10 years) including answers from the Careers360 page below:
https://law.careers360.com/articles/clat-pg-previous-year-question-paper
Best wishes for your CLAT PG preparation!
Hello Abhijit,
Check the link below to download the CLAT LLM 2022 exam question paper with solutions in PDF format.
https://law.careers360.com/articles/clat-2022-question-paper-with-solution
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The CLAT 2026 cut-off is not a single score because it varies for every National Law University (NLU), category, domicile quota, and counselling round. For top NLUs such as NLSIU Bengaluru, NALSAR Hyderabad, and WBNUJS Kolkata, the General category closing ranks were among the most competitive, typically closing
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