Candidates leave after appearing for CLAT 2013

Patna, June 1: The admission cut-off for general candidates at Chanakya National Law University could go lower than 117 this year because of the introduction of negative marking.

The results of Common Law Admission Test, conducted on May 12, were declared last evening. Chanakya National Law University (CNLU) registrar S.P. Singh said: “Hidayatullah National Law University (Raipur), the conducting university of CLAT 2013, will prepare the cut-off for different universities. Based on that, admission will be conducted in the law universities.”

The admission process in the country’s 14 universities, including at CNLU, will start soon. Classes are likely to start from the first week of July.

Last year, at CNLU the cut-off was 117 and students scoring up to 128 in the general category filled the 140 seats at the state’s only law university. Sources said this year, the cut-off could go down from 117 in the general category because of several students scoring marks separated by decimal points thanks to the negative marking introduced from 2013.

A look at the CLAT 2013 results revealed that 15 students have scored between 139 and 140 marks. Nine students have scored 140 marks, followed by one scoring 139.50 marks, four scoring 139.25 marks and another scoring 139 marks.

This year, the top score in CLAT stood at 160.75 marks, higher than last year’s 157.

Sources said students scoring 140.25 marks and above have a good chance for admission at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. A score of 137.5 and above is good enough to get one in to the Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad. The varsities in Bangalore and Hyderabad have 80 seats each.

In the state’s two centres for CLAT 2013 in Patna, 1,750 students had sat for the entrance exam. Last year, around 1,300 students had appeared in the examination from the Bihar centres.

The examination, conducted on May 12, consisted of 200 multiple choice questions worth as many marks. For every wrong answer, 0.25 mark was deducted that meant for every four wrong answers, one mark was deducted.