The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2010 will see a total of 17,300 aspirants taking the exam, which is an increase of 15 per cent as against last year.

This is 2,300 more than the 15,000 total aspirants who applied last year, reported national paper DNA today.

CLAT's officer in charge Professor D K Singh of the organising school NLIU Bhopal told DNA that alongside 35 test centres in 16 cities, this year also included Jaipur as an additional test venue for holding the entrance exam.

The exam is jointly organised by 11 national law universities in India and with the organisation headed up by Nalsar Hyderabad last year and by NLSIU Bangalore the year before.

The process of sending out hall tickets to registered candidates has already begun and the test is scheduled to take place on the afternoon of 9 May 2010 between 3 pm to 5 pm, reported DNA.

Out of 15,000 candidates of last year only 12,270 students passed the test, according to DNA.

While 11 national law schools use the CLAT for admissions most other law schools use bespoke admission tests where scores are not compatible with each other. The LSAT-India exam was launched last year and is understood to have set a target for itself to compete with CLAT as the dominant law school admission test in India. LSAT-India has signed up four law colleges for this year although it is understood that last year's applications numbered only around 1,000 when Jindal Global Law School was the only school to have exclusively used the exam.

Law Minister Veerappa Moily announced yesterday that he wanted to introduce a unified law school admission test across all Indian law schools, as first reported by Legally India.

For more on CLAT preparation, read Legally India's feature on how to ace the CLAT and a retrospective trip on the horrors and joys of CLAT.