How to Write CA Inter Law Answers
Weightage: Method chapter. It carries no marks of its own and the presentation it describes determines what every other chapter in the paper earns.
The paper is marked in three moves and lost in one
An answer in this paper has a fixed shape.
State the provision. What does the law say about this kind of situation?
Apply it to the facts you were actually given. Not to a general situation of that type — to this company, these dates, this director, this amount.
Conclude. What follows for the parties named in the question?
Candidates lose marks by dropping one of the three, and it is almost always the same one. A conclusion reached without stating the provision reads as a guess, even when it is right, because the examiner cannot tell whether you knew the law or recognised the pattern. A provision recited without being applied reads as a page of study material, because you have shown you can remember and not that you can use.
The application step is where the paper is actually decided, and it is the step candidates most often compress into half a sentence.
Use the facts you were given
This is the single most improvable habit in the paper.
Examiners put dates, amounts, names and designations into a question because they carry legal significance. A question that says a charge was created on 4 January and registered on 20 February is not making conversation — it is asking whether you know the thirty-day period and what happens after it. A question that names the person as an independent director rather than a director is asking about a provision that applies to one and not the other.
So write the facts into the answer. Not "the company must register the charge within thirty days" but "the charge was created on 4 January, so the thirty-day period expired on 3 February; registration on 20 February was therefore beyond the period and requires the Registrar to allow a further period on payment of additional fees." The second version is the same law and roughly twice the marks, because it demonstrates the application the first version merely asserts.
What to do when you cannot recall the section number
Write the rule accurately and do not stop.
ICAI's suggested answers cite sections, and citing them correctly signals command. But the marking rewards the substance of the provision, and an answer that describes the rule correctly without naming the section earns most of what a fully cited answer earns. An answer that names a section and states the rule wrongly earns nothing at all, and an answer that stops because the number would not come earns nothing either.
Two practical consequences follow. First, never leave a question blank because you cannot remember a number. Second, never invent a number — a wrong citation actively damages an otherwise correct answer, because it tells the examiner the recall is unreliable.
Where you are confident of the section, cite it. Where you are not, write "the Companies Act, 2013 provides that..." and give the rule.
The threshold table
More marks turn on numerical thresholds in this paper than on any other single category of knowledge, and they are the most memorisable thing in it.
Which companies must appoint an internal auditor. Which must rotate auditors, and after how long. Which must constitute an audit committee or a nomination and remuneration committee. What paid-up capital or turnover triggers a requirement. How many days for filing, for registering, for depositing. What percentage of members can requisition a meeting, demand a poll, or apply for oppression relief.
Keep one running table from the beginning of your preparation, add to it as you meet each threshold, and revise from the table rather than from the chapters. It should end up two or three pages long, and in the last week it is worth more than any chapter in the book.
Group the entries by kind rather than by chapter, because that is how they are recalled under pressure: all the day-limits together, all the percentage-of-members limits together, all the paid-up capital triggers together. A candidate who has done this can answer a threshold question in ten seconds and spend the saved time on the application step of a harder question.
The structure of the paper
Part I is Company Law and Limited Liability Partnership Law, carrying seventy marks across twelve chapters of the Companies Act, 2013 plus the LLP Act, 2008.
Part II is Other Laws, carrying thirty marks across the General Clauses Act, 1897, the interpretation of statutes, and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999.
Part II is the best-value block in Group I, and most candidates under-prepare it. Thirty marks sit in three short, closed, rule-based topics: the General Clauses Act is a set of interpretive rules and definitions; interpretation of statutes is a set of named rules and presumptions; FEMA is a small set of definitions and a distinction between two routes. None of it requires the sustained reading that the Companies Act does, and all of it can be secured in a fraction of the time.
The paper is 70 marks descriptive and 30 marks of case-scenario MCQs, and there is no negative marking, so every objective question is attempted without deliberation.
Reading the Companies Act as a life story
Twelve chapters of statute is a great deal of material to hold as twelve chapters. It is much less as one narrative, and the narrative is the life of a company.
It is incorporated — the promoters form it, the memorandum and articles are registered, it acquires a separate legal personality.
It raises capital — it issues a prospectus, allots shares, issues debentures, and later may alter or reduce its capital.
It borrows and secures the borrowing — it accepts deposits under conditions, it creates charges on its assets, and the charges are registered so that later lenders can see them.
It is governed — it holds meetings, passes resolutions, appoints and removes directors, and declares dividends out of profits.
It is accountable — it keeps books, prepares financial statements, appoints auditors and is audited.
It may operate across borders, or be a foreign company operating here.
Every chapter of Part I sits somewhere on that line, and knowing where it sits usually tells you what it is about. It also makes the provisions feel connected rather than arbitrary: the registration of charges exists because of the borrowing that precedes it; the audit provisions exist because of the accounts that precede them.
Answering the case-scenario MCQs
They are not standalone recall questions. A short factual situation is given — a company, some figures, a transaction — and several linked questions follow.
Read the scenario once, carefully, before looking at any question. Note the dates and amounts, because they are what the questions will turn on. Then answer all the questions on that scenario together.
The common failure is reading the scenario once per question, which multiplies the reading four-fold and still produces a shakier grasp than one careful read. Budget the reading time as fixed and the answering time as fast.
Attempt every one. There is no negative marking at Intermediate level, so a blank is worth zero and a guess is worth more than zero. There is no situation in which leaving one unattempted is correct.
Presentation
Write in short paragraphs, one point each. A dense block of prose containing five correct points is marked as though it contained two, because an examiner marking two hundred scripts finds what is visible.
Name the parties. If the question calls the company Alpha Ltd and the director Mr Rao, use those names rather than "the company" and "the director". It forces the application step and it makes the answer readable.
Answer the question that was asked. If a question asks whether the appointment is valid, the answer begins with the provision and ends with "the appointment is therefore valid" or "is therefore not valid." A candidate who explains the law at length and never states the conclusion has left the last and easiest mark on the table.
Where a question has multiple parts, answer them in order and label them. Examiners mark against a scheme organised by part, and an unlabelled answer covering all the parts in one flow is harder to mark and marked accordingly.
The five ways marks are lost
Stating the law and not applying it. The most common and the most expensive.
Ignoring the facts supplied. Dates and amounts in a question are there to be used.
Inventing a section number. A wrong citation damages a correct answer.
Missing the threshold. Most often because the table was never built.
Not concluding. The question asked whether something is valid; say whether it is.
What preparation should look like
Read a chapter, then immediately answer two past questions on it without looking back. The gap between what you have just read and what you can produce is the whole of your remaining work, and it is invisible until you try.
Build the threshold table from day one. Revise from it weekly.
Work Part II early rather than last. It is thirty marks, it is short, and leaving it to the final week is why candidates who know the Companies Act well still come out at thirty-eight.
And practise writing the three moves explicitly, in that order, until the structure is automatic. Under time pressure, structure is what survives; elegance is not.
