Hidayatullah National Law University

Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur, was established in 2003 under the Hidayatullah National University of Law, Chhattisgarh Act (Act No. 10 of 2003). It holds UGC Section 2(f) recognition and has been declared fit to receive Central assistance under Section 12(B), both confirmed directly on the university's own official page. Its campus is at Sector 40, Uparwara, Atal Nagar-Nava Raipur, Chhattisgarh, reported at roughly 65 to 66 acres.

HNLU does not appear anywhere in NAAC's own published dataset of currently valid accreditations, and the university's own UGC-recognition page does not mention NAAC; this page states no NAAC grade. It also does not appear in NIRF's published 2025 Law ranking, which covers the top 40 institutions nationally, confirmed directly against nirfindia.org, though the university does submit NIRF data each year.

HNLU Snapshot

Programmes

HNLU offers BA LLB (Hons), a 5-year integrated undergraduate programme with a sanctioned intake of 187 per year, unchanged across recent admission cycles; LLM, a 1-year postgraduate programme with a sanctioned intake of 94 per year; and PhD (Law), with 46 full-time scholars as of the university's latest submission. It does not offer BBA LLB or MBA programmes.

Admission to all HNLU programmes runs through CLAT (Common Law Admission Test), with selection and counselling conducted directly by the university following the national CLAT process.

Admissions

For the 2026-27 cycle, selection lists for BA LLB and LLM ran from June through early August 2026, with the most recent documented round, an SC/OBC LLM selection list, dated 5 August 2026. As of this writing, six days after that round, the main CLAT-2026 counselling cycle for HNLU appears to have concluded; a separately circulating "vacant seats" notice actually describes the 2025-26 cycle and is not treated here as a current 2026-27 opening.

Rankings

Hidayatullah National Law University does not appear in NIRF's published 2025 or 2024 Law ranking, which covers the top 40 institutions nationally, confirmed directly against nirfindia.org, despite submitting NIRF data each year. It also has no valid NAAC accreditation on record, confirmed directly against NAAC's own published dataset. In private media rankings, India Today placed it 5th among National Law Universities in its 2021-2025 survey, and The Week ranked it 8th of 38 in 2025.

Campus

HNLU's campus is at Sector 40, Uparwara, Atal Nagar-Nava Raipur, Chhattisgarh, reported at roughly 65 to 66 acres, with sources giving slightly conflicting figures.

Notable alumni

No independently verifiable, individually sourced notable alumni could be confirmed for this institution at the time of writing. This section is left out rather than populated with unconfirmed names.

Sources

• https://hnlu.ac.in/hnlu/about-us/ugc-recognition/ (official, UGC Section 2(f) and 12(B) status)
• https://hnlu.ac.in/admission-2026/ (official, live 2026-27 CLAT admission and selection-list status)
• https://www.naac.gov.in/index.php/en/2-uncategorised/32-accreditation-status (NAAC's own published dataset, confirms HNLU's absence from currently valid accreditations)
• https://www.nirfindia.org/Rankings/2025/LawRanking.html (NIRF 2025 Law ranking, checked directly, confirms HNLU's absence from the published top 40)