News Category: News
“4th CLS Certificate Course on Judicial Accountability: Structure, Reforms and Challenges – 18th and 19th Feb 2023”
22 Feb 2023
Platform: Video Conferencing (Google Meet)
Venue: Conference Hall, 2nd Floor, Administrative Block, NLUO
The Constitutional Law Society of National Law University Odisha successfully organized the 4th edition of its Certificate Course on the topic of ‘Judicial Accountability: Structure, Reforms and Challenges’. The Course, which was held in Hybrid mode comprised lectures which were delivered physically and virtually. The Course Instructors for the Course were Dr. Justice M.M. Das, former Judge of the Orissa High Court, Dr. Rangaswamy D, Assistant Professor of Law at the Karnataka State Law University, and Ms. Ayushi Upadhyay, Civil Judge, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh.
We are proud to note that for the first time since the inception of its Annual Course, the 4th CLS Course witnessed the participation of about 170 students from over 24 different law schools.
The Course commenced with its first session on the 18th of February. The first two sessions of the Course were instructed by Ms. Ayushi Upadhyay on the theme of ‘Cracking the Lower Judicial Services: Practical Insights‘. During the course of the first two sessions, Ms. Upadhyay reflected on her journey through law school and how she accidentally came about being a judge. Ms. Upadhyay talked about how she never pursued a preparatory approach towards the judicial services because she never imagined herself in the role. However, once she decided to pursue the same, she never looked back. She underscored that it is critical for persons preparing for the judicial services to grasp and understand the practical underpinnings of procedural law apart from possessing a firm grip on the substantive nuances of the law.
Continuing into the 2nd session for the day, Ms. Upadhyay gracefully welcomed queries from the participants who were eager to learn about the everyday experiences of a Civil Judge. While sharing her experience, she attempted to shatter the myth that the lives of judges are drenched in case files, encompass long hours and is endlessly boring. In her experience, life in any profession is defined by the personal approach one takes towards their job and role, and not by the mere nature of the profession.
The final session for the first day of the Course was instructed by Dr. Rangaswamy D on the theme of ‘Judicial Accountability: From the Perspective of The Indian Constitution‘. In his lecture, Dr. Rangaswamy discussed the concept of Judicial Independence and Accountability, highlighting the interdependence of the triumvirate of the judiciary, executive, and legislature. He distinguished three standpoints to define accountability: responsibility, accountability in respect of position or person, and evaluative accountability. He also discussed the mechanism of Judicial Accountability, which includes the role of institutions such as Judicial Councils, Parliamentary Procedures, Anti-Corruption Bodies, and Civil Society Monitoring and Reporting Bodies. He emphasized the importance of high morals and character in judges, who have a vital role in the administration of justice.
Dr. Rangaswamy also discussed the concept of ‘Behavioural Accountability’ in the judiciary, which includes five clauses: resignation, good behaviour, oath, post-retirement jobs of judges, and the Judges (Accountability) Act, of 1968. He also introduced the Judicial Standard and Accountability Bill, which defines essential terms like ‘incapacity’ and ‘misbehaviour’, and contemplates around 19 judicial standards. Overall, the lecture provided deep insights into the subject matter, and Dr. Rangaswamy urged the viewers to maintain high ethical and moral standards when and should they become judges.
After the successful completion of its first day, the Course kicked off its 2nd Day with the 4th and 5th sessions being instructed by Ms. Ayushi Upadhyay on the theme of ‘Judgement Writing, Practical Tips for Judicial Practice‘. In these sessions, she guided participants on effective judgment writing and provided practical tips for judicial practice. She discussed that Supreme Court and High Court judges do not have any express or fixed criteria or format for writing judgments, and lower courts follow the rules of their respective HCs for judgment writing.
Ms. Upadhyay explained the general format of judgment writing for both criminal and civil cases. She also answered questions related to the legal system, including whether the law goes above morality and whether judgments need to explicitly mention the instances of mens rea and actus reus. She mentioned that judges can take sua sponte action, and when judgments have to record a plethora of information, the judge only has to pick and choose the relevant facts.
The Course concluded with its final session being instructed by Dr. Justice M.M. Das who conducted his session on the topic of ‘Judicial Appointments, Functioning of the Collegium System, the Role of political will, and Contemporary Challenges‘. Justice Das commenced his lecture by briefly tracing the history of development in the sphere of judicial appointments in post-independence India. Justice Das highlighted how the concept of the collegium system is absent from the original Constitution and does not have any statutory basis. He explained that the system traces its origin to the landmark 1981 case of S.P. Gupta v. President of India also popularly known as the First judges’ Case. He also discussed how the interpretation of Article 124(2) has witnessed critical observations from members of the judiciary as well as the executive, over the years.
Justice Das also examined the legislature’s attempt to have a say in judicial appointments through the introduction of the National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC) comprising members of the legislatures, judiciary, and other ejusdem generis persons. However, the enactment of the NJAC was short-lived, as the same was struck down by the Apex Court in a case comprising a motley of challenges spearheaded by the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association. Justice Das also extended his personal views on the topic and observed that certain international jurisdictions have introduced an active role of the legislature or executive in the appointment of judges, and this has helped in strengthening the institution of democracy. Justice Das concluded the session by acknowledging that such a change can undoubtedly be marked in India as well, but only through the rule of law and within the bounds of the Indian Constitution. The lecture concluded with the participants exchanging their questions, concerns, thoughts and views with Justice Das.
With this, the Course drew to a successful conclusion.
“Team NLUO adjudged as Semi-finalists in the South Asia Regional Rounds of the 16th Monroe E. Price Media Law Moot Court Competition 2023.”
22 Feb 2023
“Second Turncoat Debate Competition – Conducted by IPAAC, NLUO – 15th Feb 2023”
17 Feb 2023
The Intellectual Property Analysis and Advocacy Centre (IPAAC) conducted the Second Edition of the Turncoat Debate Competition on 15th February 2023. The event was organized with the objective to increase awareness about Intellectual Property Rights among the students to familiarize them with the contemporary issues revolving around Intellectual Property Rights. This competition was a platform through which they could engage in such discussions and enhance their public speaking skills.
Individual Participants from the first and second year engaged with different propositions ranging over several topics such as copyright in various social media platforms and AI, plant variety protection, patents and so on. The competition did not require prior specialized knowledge in Intellectual Property Rights and was aimed at serving as the starting point for students’ interest in the law related to Intellectual Property.
The competition concluded with Sidhanth M K Majoo (Batch 2021-2026) bagging the first position and Pratik Biswal (Batch of 2022-2027) coming in as a runner up.
The Centre highly encourages the enthusiasm of the participants and hopes to continue with similar initiatives to increase the awareness of Intellectual Property amongst the students.
“Quotation Call Notice for Auction of Scrap Items”
16 Feb 2023
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“A guest lecture on ‘State of Legal Education in India – Social Relevance, Accessibility and Inclusivity’.”
14 Feb 2023
Date: 11.02.23???????????????????????Platform: Video Conferencing (Google Meet)? ?????????????????????????
The Constitutional Law Society of National Law University Odisha successfully organized a guest lecture on the topic ‘State of Legal Education in India – Social Relevance, Accessibility and Inclusivity’. The lecture was delivered by Mr. Rahul Bajaj and Mr. Husain Aanis Khan. Mr. Bajaj is an attorney at Ira Law and a Senior Associate Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Mr. Khan is a research fellow in the Legal Design and Regulation team at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
Mr. Rahul Bajaj started the lecture session by focusing on social relevance and accessibility in landscape of legal education. He highlighted the problems faced by students in law schools due to exclusionary facets such as disability. He explained how differently abled people struggle to be a part of the social mainstream through everyday examples.
He asked a few questions to decipher students’ ground reality concerning accessibility. He prompted attendees to share their own real-life experiences involving problems faced by differently people. The problems included but were not limited to not being able to learn things properly due to the teaching pedagogy not being disabled-friendly. Furthermore, through the raise of hands, it was observed that the percentage of people who have either seen disabled people taking part in activities or have themselves taken part with them is quite low.
To address the problem of image accessibility, document accessibility, and physical accessibility, he offered a few solutions. To deal with the problem of image accessibility, he urged the attendees to think about providing an image description so that people with vision disabilities can understand the image through the description. The problem of document accessibility can be solved by merely creating a searchable PDF instead of an image-based PDF. Additionally, he highlighted that the issue of physical accessibility can be solved only through collective action on a large scale as many places are still not disabled-friendly. To substantiate his point, he gave the example of Indian court premises.
After Mr. Bajaj covered the broad pointers under accessibility issues, the lecture was continued by Mr. Husain Aanis Khan, who covered the topic from the perspective of inclusivity. He commenced his lecture session with the purpose of broadening the view on access to legal education.
Mr. Khan introduced three stages to the problem of accessibility in legal education. These are:
- Pre-Admission Stage: This stage (also understood as the Pre-Action Stage) can be categorised as two parts. The first, where students do not appear for law examinations like CLAT in the first place. The reason for this is two-fold. One, the fees of such examinations is extremely high, especially for a student coming from a low-income background. Two, they do not see a B.A., LL.B. degree as a good enough return on investment. The second part relates to securing a seat in any of the top National Law Universities. There is a deeper understanding to this than just “how meritorious a student is”. Mr. Khan explained how a lot of students who come from disadvantaged sections of the society face challenges socially which translates into their educational journey. It is important to understand that if a student is overcoming social barriers to reach a similar, if not the same, stand as a student who had a comparatively easier journey, should be given the same standing and chance to compete further. This is because that student has not just shown that they are academically meritorious but they also possess the ability to overcome social pressures and differences.
- Admissions Stage: This stage begins with the question of attending a law school after getting through the examination. Mostly, students are doubtful about the fees and the inclusivity in law schools. A lot of times, students are unable to finance their education which leads to, as Mr. Khan said, the premier law schools becoming “lands of the rich”.
- Post-Admission Stage: After students from lesser privileged background get through the first two stages, they face Post Admission Exclusion in colleges. This is not just by their peers; it also comes from employers and even non-human aspects like infrastructure! Mr. Khan points out how it becomes difficult for a lot of students to have a healthy social life, given its expenses.
Further, Mr. Khan talked about two schools of thoughts which try to provide courses of action that are explored to improve accessibility to legal education in the country. The first one being, removing merit as a basis of accessibility and focussing on just giving equal representation to all in the legal arena. However, Mr. Khan disagrees with this ideology. The other ideology, which he supports, is to understand and acknowledge that merit is an important basis of the filtration process in any field, but it should be complemented with the acceptance and inclusion of people from under-represented backgrounds and social divisions.
With students joining from various law schools, Mr. Khan and Mr. Bajaj concluded the lecture by taking questions from the audience and addressing problems faced by students in real lives. The guests were delighted to see the enthusiasm of the audience in making small actions as a part of their routine to make legal education and the profession of law equally accessible for their peers.
“Guest Lecture by Dr. Warren Burke on Public Health Law: Universal Themes”
11 Feb 2023
CPHL organised a Guest Lecture by Dr. Warren Burke on Public Health Law: Universal Themes
Centre for Public Health Law, National Law University Odisha organised a Guest Lecture by Dr. Warren Burke on ‘Public Health Law: Universal Themes’ on 10th February 2023 (Friday) from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. The lecture provided the students of Madhusudan Law University and University Law College, Utkal University a cursory glance into the domain of public health law that they can take up for research and practice, academically and professionally. The lecture also catered to the questions like – what role do lawyers play in public health? To what extent can the law be used to regulate individual behaviour for furthering public health? How can legal intervention be used in a manner that furthers social justice and decreases health disparity?
Dr. Warren Burke is a Fulbright Scholar and a visiting professor at National Law University Odisha. He is a Senior Attorney, Office of the Legislative Counsel, United States House of Representatives.
“NLU Odisha signed an MOU with PLR Chambers, 8th February 2023.”
08 Feb 2023
National Law University Odisha signed an MOU with PLR Chambers on 08.02.2023. The main purpose of object is to collaborate on matters relating to legal advisory, legislative drafting, exploratory research, empirical studies, modelling, business advisory, project consultancy, regulatory and policy issues to support public and private sector funding agencies in transitioning from concepts to commercially viable frameworks.?/p>
“Call for Applications | Project Manager and Project Associate | Project on Conducting Women Safety Audit in the City of Asansol”
06 Feb 2023
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“Advertisement for Position of Project Manager and Project Coordinator.”
05 Feb 2023
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“Advertisement for Faculty Position in Political Science”
31 Jan 2023
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