NLU Delhi does not admit through CLAT. It runs its own test, the All India Law Entrance Test, and that is the only route into its five-year B.A.LL.B. (Hons.).
So if NLU Delhi is a university you would attend, sitting AILET is not optional. It is a separate application, a separate fee and a separate day, a week after CLAT.
Everything below is read from NLU Delhi's own pages: its AILET 2027 notification of 23 July 2026, its admission announcement of 7 August 2026, and the B.A.LL.B. pages on nationallawuniversitydelhi.in, read on 24 October 2026.
The dates
| Test | Sunday 13 December 2026, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm |
| Applications opened | 7 August 2026 |
| Last date to apply | Tuesday 10 November 2026 |
| Admit card | 30 November 2026 |
Foreign nationals and OCI/PIO candidates, who are admitted without the test, may apply until 30 April 2027.
The paper
| Questions | 150 multiple-choice questions, one mark each |
| Time | 120 minutes |
| English Language | 50 questions |
| Current Affairs and General Knowledge | 30 questions |
| Logical Reasoning | 70 questions |
| Negative marking | 0.25 for each wrong answer |
There is no legal reasoning section. The university says legal principles may be used in Logical Reasoning to test logical aptitude, but the examination "will not require any kind of legal knowledge or technical understanding."
Ties are broken by higher marks in Logical Reasoning, then by age (the older candidate ranks higher), then by a computerised draw of lots.
The exam-details page also links previous years' AILET B.A.LL.B. question papers, which are the right material for the timed practice described below.
How it differs from CLAT
It is faster. 150 questions in 120 minutes is 48 seconds a question, against CLAT's one minute. Check how that feels on a previous paper before the day rather than on it.
Logical Reasoning is nearly half the paper, and it decides ties. If you are choosing where an extra hour of AILET-specific practice goes, it goes here.
There is no Quantitative Techniques section and no Legal Reasoning section. The CLAT legal reasoning work still helps, because applying a stated principle to facts is a reasoning skill, but it will appear inside Logical Reasoning rather than on its own.
The marking is the same. −0.25 for a wrong answer, exactly as in CLAT, so the attempt strategy you have built for CLAT carries over unchanged. Contrast SLAT and MH-CET Law, which have no negative marking at all.
Who can apply
| Qualification | Class 12 (10+2) or equivalent |
| Minimum marks | 45%; 42% for OBC; 40% for SC and ST |
| Appearing candidates | Students sitting Class 12 in 2027 may apply |
| Fee | ₹3,000; ₹1,000 for SC, ST and persons with disability |
| Fee exemption | SC/ST and women candidates below the poverty line |
The seats
| Category | Seats |
|---|---|
| General | 50 |
| OBC (non-creamy layer) | 24 |
| SC | 17 |
| ST | 8 |
| EWS | 11 |
| **On AILET merit** | **110** |
| Foreign nationals and OCI/PIO (direct admission) | 10 |
| **Total** | **120** |
Persons with disability have a 5% horizontal reservation across the categories — 6 of the 110 seats. For OBC, the certificate may be issued under the Central List or under the Delhi State List.
Closing ranks are not given here. NLU Delhi is not in the CLAT cutoff data and never will be, because it is not a CLAT participant. None of the closing ranks on that table applies to it, and this page does not carry figures for past AILET merit lists that we could not read from the university itself.
Test cities
32 cities, from Ahmedabad to Visakhapatnam, including Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida and Gurugram around the capital. A city with fewer than 200 candidates gets no centre, and its candidates are moved to their second or third choice — so fill in all three preferences carefully.
Where NLU Delhi stands
It is ranked second among law schools in the NIRF India Rankings 2025 (Law), with a score of 80.00, behind NLSIU Bengaluru. That is why it appears in every NLU comparison despite not taking CLAT.
What to do
Apply before 10 November. The deadline comes before CLAT, not after it, so the decision cannot wait for your CLAT result.
Do not prepare for it separately. Prepare for the reading and the reasoning, then sit two or three of the university's previous papers, timed, in the week between CLAT on 6 December and AILET on the 13th, to adjust to its speed.
Practise at AILET's pace. If your CLAT mocks finish with no time to spare, 48 seconds a question will feel very different. A timed previous paper will tell you how different.
The wider calendar
The law entrance exams page covers SLAT and MH-CET Law alongside AILET, with the same discipline: dates and patterns where they have been read from the source, and a clear statement where they have not.
CLAT 2027 is on 6 December 2026 and registration closes 31 October 2026 — the CLAT 2027 hub has the cycle in order.
For where NLU Delhi sits among the universities, the Top NLUs page includes it in the NIRF ranking with an explicit note that there is no CLAT closing rank to show.
And the part that serves every one of these exams: the free Diagnostic Test is a full-length timed paper with a section-wise and timing breakdown at the end.