The Common Law Admission Test will go completely online from next year in a bid for transparency and fairness.

All aspirants wishing to study law at the country’s premier institutions will just be able to sit for the online test. Till last year, the examination was conducted in online and offline modes. Last week, the implementation committee of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) decided to adopt the online system for all candidates.

Registrar of Chanakya National Law University S.P. Singh said the decision was taken, among other reasons, because large number of candidates applied for the online mode last year.

This implementation committee of CLAT had a two-day meeting from Thursday at Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow. With representatives from the national law universities, the committee decided to adopt the online mode of examination from 2015.

The committee also decided to include Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University, Visakhapatnam, in the CLAT list, taking the number of institutions under it to 16.

The other universities include the Chanakya National Law University, Patna, National Law School of India University, Bangalore, Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad, National Law Institute University, Bhopal, West Bengal National University of Jurisdical Sciences, Calcutta, Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur, and National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi.

Chanakya National Law University registrar Singh, who attended the implementation committee meeting, told The Telegraph: “The implementation committee decided to adopt the online test format to bring transparency in the examination process and to check unfair means, if any, used by students. Also, last year, at least 70 per cent candidates applied for the online test in spite of the option for the offline mode of application.”

Students welcomed the decision.

Harsh Verma, an Intermediate student (arts) at AN College, Patna, said: “The decision to go for the online test in CLAT will help students and also ensure transparency. They’ll be able to answer faster too.”

Going for the online format would also mean more preparation. To accommodate the large number of applicants, more examination centres would have to be set up compared to last year.

Till 2014, CNLU and Patna Science College were the only examination centres in Bihar. Now, there will be more.

The entire process will be conducted online — from filling forms to the final fee submission (Rs 4,000). Candidates can fill the online application forms from January 1-March 31, 2015. The examination, scheduled on May 10, will be held across 28 cities in the country, eight more than last year.

This year, LLM and LLB seats are 1,700 and 350, respectively. In two hours, examinees would have to solve 200 questions on English, logical reasoning, general knowledge, legal aptitude and mathematics. Each question will carry one mark with deduction of .25 marks for every negative answer.