The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2015 will be attempted by at least 40,000 candidates vying for scarce undergraduate and postgraduate places, which is 20 per cent more than the 33,491 total CLAT takers last year.

CLAT 2015 convenor RMLNLU Lucknow’s vice chancellor Gurdip Singh told Legally India that 40,000 candidates had completed their CLAT online registration, having paid application fees, as of 31 March 2015. This number includes both undergrad (LLB) and postgrad (LLM) aspirants, but there are still 14 days of applications to go under an extension to the deadline recently granted.

Singh told Legally India that around 40,000 candidates had registered for the exam and paid its application fee as on 31 March, but there were around 22,000 others who had completed CLAT’s online application form without depositing the fee but who would be likely to do so.

The application deadline was therefore extended to 14 April allow the candidates who had not yet paid the fee.

The exam for admission to 17 national law universities has seen an increase in candidates every year since its inception in 2008.

A total of 33,491 candidates appeared in CLAT 2014. However, in 2014 the year-on-year growth rate was the lowest in recent times for undergrad admissions. A total of 31,231 candidates had appeared for CLAT 2014 for LLB admissions, marking only a 5 per cent increase in the number of candidates since 2013.

However 2,260 LLM aspirants had appeared in CLAT 2014, which was a year-on-year increase of 63 per cent.

A breakdown between LLB and LLM applicants was not yet available for this year, said Singh.