Thursday, November 1, 2007

Of patents and Land Acquisition and the GATS and... Arbitration

It has been a very long semester...very very long!

I am once again your very own record man. I have participated in more moot courts than what is usually done by people who are not hyper-obsessed with the idea of bluffing footnotes and telling lies (Johnny didnt eat the sugar and if he did he must have been a lawyer...hahaha). But then, perhaps I am after all one of them! Mooting is the best thing that I do in law school, and I am sure will do in law school.

Raj Anand Moot

It all started on a dull evening when the moot court society had the problem of the Raj Anand moot court competition on IPR. The university wanted to send a good team and my seniors didnt want to go. So me and anna (aravind) became the obvious choice (Blushing!). This time though we also had a researcher, Johnny-nimblefingers aka John Cherian Ambooken. But as things turned out, we would have done much better just staying away from words like patents and trademarks. Our almost strong-hearted efforts at making a well researched memo and a high sounding oral presentation yielded absolutely no benefits because the university jury decided we werent good enough to participate. Amidst a slightly different kind of murky hotch-potch we were once again chugging along on a train! Delhi hosted the competition and we finished 7th (Sad!). The very interesting thing about it all was during the felicitation. We were told that the problem is released in March and in fact that is one of the great things about the organisation of the moot i.e. dates are fixed. It was only then that I realised that every other team had prepared for 3 months while we simply landed there with a couple of weeks of IPR know-hows. It also answered one of my bugging questions as to why the clarifications had been given along with the problem...I said they could have simple mentioned it in the problem!! The thing is, people had first researched and then asked and then after that they had been clarified...AND it was only after that time when we got the problem. So much for winning Raj Anand.

Tankha Moot on Land Acquisition

In the midst of two benchmark rounds that I gave for Raj Anand I had simultaneously registered for a moot being organised by NLIU, Bhopal: The 2nd Justice RK Tankha Memorial moot court. This time the team composed of Abs aka Abhishek Srivastava and JD aka Tutu aka Jaydeep Singh Yadav and yours truly. The team was formed very casually, graduating very quickly from being a joke into a serious national moot. Once again the memo was made, logical, footnoted and sprayed with the usual touch-ups of style. With almost properly made tickets for once, it happened again. We were chugging along on a train. Not that I hated the other train journeys too much but then right before one reaches Bhopal the scenic display is quite fantastic and thus earned a specific mention. Anyways once in NLIU we were greeted quite well (Apart from that no good driver of ours who played the song masti-masti-mast-kalandar when we reached there and made us very uncomfortable in front of the well dressed students ready to greet us). We munched on a very eagerly awaited lunch (Trains and food never go together). The moot began in right earnest and we glided through to the final I was suddenly standing in front of a huge bench that comprised Justice AK Mathur (Judge Supreme Court), 3 other judges of the MP High Court including the CJ AK Patnaik and Sr Advocate of the SC Mr Vivek K Tankha. Having gotten the opportunity of a lifetime I mooted to whatever level I could. The results were not so simple...no no not at all, it was without any trace of exaggeration EXTRAORDINARY!! We won the moot and the best memorial and I personally, was awarded the Best Speaker. With a bag full of trophies and a brain full of happy memories I was back at the very very famed Hidayatullah National Law University.

Plans were being made for participating in Jessup. That didnt quite come through very well especially due to the Surana bias involved and I suddenly found myself preparing for a very very alien moot. ELSA WTO moot court. Being accustomed to the ICJ and the domestic courts of India, basically so to say, the spheres of international law and municipal law. The principles governing WTO were quite unfamiliar.

ELSA Moot Court on WTO Law

This years problem was based on the GATS and Basic Telecommunications. Anand Shankar Jha one my seniors was my co-speaker and there was another team in the challenge rounds of the university. As it turned out this was slated to be the most awaited moot court challenge in this university. On the D-day I was back at my tensed best. The moot went on very well though...in fact I was quite content with myself...! Alas! the very last query put to me left me stumped. I thought it was a wrong question and I was left irritated to say the least. We didnt qualify and a lot had to do with me because my co-speaker had got the highest marks!! So sad. Good bye GATS...so much for the WTO dispute settlement body!

Willem C Vis Commercial Arbitration

It had already been a lot of mooting for me and especially because of the loss I faced in the challenge rounds I felt thoroughly drained and tired. I just wanted to sleep peacefully for a few nights with no memo to type, no footnote to edit...It seemed my life had become limited to coming up with silly arguments for fictional crap created by marketing idea oriented themes that moot courts!! Oh my gawdd I was actually criticising moot courts...what I loved most!! The very same day when I somehow wanted to finish dinner and catch the bust to the hostel so that I could just drop dead...Adarsh Bhaiyya asked me if I wanted to do the Vis moot. First thing I told him was what was actually quite honest: I am TIRED!!... he said you will get over it in a few days. I said I will tell you tomorrow. I was barely standing, battling a gruesome war with the inside of my super-aching head which was mercilessly hammering on my skull. That was one headache I will remember for a long long time. For the first time in many many months I felt weak, I was physically and emotionally void. The emotional part is because in my university you have different kinds of people, some who are just waiting like ever-hungry vultures to remark on my defeats...mainly because they dont have any. No defeats no victories...they have their own dull lives to battle. I pity them and think maybe they should have a moral right to pass comments on me...why? because thats all they do in their lives!! One shoudl always have a reason to live...without that men die! If within their boring no-activity lives they find time to curse me and find some solace in that... well...touche.

Anyways commercial arbitration did happen. I said yes the next day and my dream to team up with Adarsh Bhaiyya had finally emanated out of my sleeps into my life of flesh and blood. I was less committed than any other moot I have ever done. I intend to make that up now for the real thing. The challenge rounds were quite easy since we had little competition especially with Amit Bhaiyya and Adarsh Bhaiyya in the team!! The memo was also made veru hurriedly. I made one issue and Adarsh and Amit Bhaiyya one each. The results then: we won and by a handsome margine. So then I am off to Hong-Kong in the month of March!

The end-sems came and went...I gave the extra exam i.e. IPC which went well!

AND finally...The fifth semester was over. Or so I thought...but as things turned out it stretched even longer...the bus I took home took double the time it should take. 14hrs for a 7hr train journey and then...then then..finally I was at home staring down greedily at my little brother for what was to be a few happy relaxed days at home before I am once again chugging along on a train to delhi for interning with the Solicitor General of India.

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