The Moot Court Society of St. Joseph’s College of Law, Bangalore, organized Internal Ranking Rounds (IRR) for the students of Law pursuing BA.LL.B., BBA.LL.B., B.Com. LL.B. and LL. B programmes.

Objectives: Developing skills of written and oral advocacy among students,

Striving to give students exposure to courtroom procedure and practice, and

To Ensure that the best teams represent SJCL at various National Moot Court Competitions for the academic year 2023-24.

Proposition details:

The Proposition was drafted by the Faculty Coordinator, and the proposition was based on Human Rights of persons with disabilities.it was based on how the UPSC rules have been biased and provided an argument on the basis international laws as to why person with disabilities should be allowed in UPSC

The bench memorandum for the same was drafted by Mr. Zafar and Mr. Kishore with the assistance of Mr. Ninad Student coordinator.

Event Details: IRR consisted of 4 Main Events - Researcher’s test, Draw of lots, Memorial Evaluation and Oral Rounds. The Researcher’s test was conducted on 22nd February, draw of lots and memorial exchange was conducted on 23r February, 2024. The oral arguments were conducted on 24th February, 2024.

Researcher’s Test

The MCS is grateful to the faculty Prof. Mr. Sathyki, Prof. Mr. Surjeet,for supervising the researchers' test. The researcher’s Test was conducted to test the student’s ability to examine their understanding and researching skills based on the moot problem. It was a pen and paper based MCQ test with a total of 50 questions. The duration of the test was 30 minutes.

Draw of lots

The sides to be argued by the teams were decided by a draw of lots on the 6th of January, prior to the commencement of the oral rounds of competition. The Memorials of the opposite teams were duly exchanged immediately after the draw of lots.

Memorial Evaluation

The participating teams in the IRR had to submit a soft copy and three hard copies of the memorials from both sides of the petition. The same was meticulously evaluated by Ms. Aishwarya, Ms. Sangeetha, Mr. Moses, Ms Tejaswini, Ms Ivin, Mr Harish, Ms Blessy, Ms. Ayman, Ms. Swathi, Ms. Surya, Mr. Surjeet, Mr. Sudeep, Mr. Sathyaki Ms. Sobha and Mr. Gagan, as per the criteria provided to them.

Parameters on which the memorials were evaluated- Depth and Quality of Research

Citations

Relevance and Application

Evidence of Original Thought

Proper and articulate analysis, clarity, and Organization

Knowledge and Application of Facts

Grammar and style

Referencing

Presentations

Oral Rounds

The oral rounds were conducted on 24th February 2024 from 10.30 AM to 1.30 PM. A total of 92 teams registered for IRR out of which 64 teams submitted the memorials and reached the oral rounds of the Competition. They were judged by the distinguished members of the Bar. Every team was required to argue both as the Petitioner and the Respondent.

The oral rounds were divided into two rounds. The first Round of the competition was held as Round 1 between 9.30 am to 10.30 am. The Second Round of the competition was held Round 2 between 11:30am to 12:30pm.

JUDGES INVITED FOR THE ROUND

1. Farhan Quazi

2. Sakleen Banu

3. Charuta Nair

4. Subrahmanya Kaushik

5. Vrushali

6. Chandana Swamy

7. Pranjali Pandya

8. Chaya

9. Ramya Bhat

10. Sandeep Lahiri

11. Vinutha

12. Vimala Raj B

13. Anjana Pradeep

14. Manu Mariyan Abraham

15. Charitha V

16. Srikanth Bharadwaj

17. Saaneya Hidayath

18. Nithya

19. Alice Chitra

20. Sharath Raj

21. Aditya Diwakara

22. Aishwarya Prasad

23. Kushal Kumar

24. Sai Shakti

25. Ashika Haresh

26. Aditya Vijayaraghava

27. Anagha Nair

28. Likitha P Mahdiker

29. Geetha Shree

30. Pranav Varma

31. B N Gauri

32. Bhavana Kashyap

33. Mahima Meenaxi

34. Sanjay Reddy

35. Chandan Reddy

36. Rajesh Somarajan

37. Dr. Ashoka

38. Pranav Rajesh

39. Gaurav Ramakrishna

40. Sharan Tadahal

41. Arjun Rego

42. Akash Rao

43. Sri Rama Krishnan

44. Aditi Agarwal

45. Bindushree

46. Lakshmikant

47. Samartha

48. Rakshith Kundapura

49. Rohith Swamy

50. Rida Ameen

51. Nidhi Mehta

52. Vaishnavi

53. Tapo Shresta

54. Arlene Koshy

55. Muni Singh C

56. Veeresh M Uppin

57. Nagesh Vinay

58. Vybavi

59. Hemant Bharadwaj

60. Esha Shah

61. Geethanjali K V

62. Sneha Satesh

63. Rachana Pise

Volunteers involved -

1. COURT CLERKS

Diya H

Deekshitha H

saanjh A

Ankitha S

Solomon N

Zeba N S

Bharat V

Athish M

Namrata A

Neeraja R

Abdul Basith

Rishel Almeida

Chandana S

Tania mercy

Abdul Haadi

Srinidhi P

Sreya Ann Jose

Teshra D R

Rachita Gowda

Amoolya Varsha

Devi Krishna S R

M D Akbar

Nishtha Jain

Preethi Esther

Sachin

Pradeepta

Owaiz Khan

Pranav K N

Shashank

Sanjana A

Meena Altaf

Aditi P

Jheel Bohra

Abhinav W

2. JUDGES VOLUNTEERS

Cynthia

Shivani

Rithesh

Simran

Aneesha

Jeshurun

Tejaswini

Varshaa

3. SCORING COMMITTEE

FACULTY

Thomas Alexander 

Ashish 

Blessy 

Aishwarya 

Swathi 

Ivin

Lincy 

Madhura

Gagan

Bhaskar

Geo

Satyaki

STUDENTS –

Ann Maria

Aysha

Madhav

Alby

Yadhu

Nischal

Victor

Aryan 

Muktha

Manish

Shreyas

4. FACULTY ASSIGNED FOR HOSPITALITY – Ayman

Moses

Shoba

Harish

Sangeetha

Tejaswini

Valedictory:

The Valedictory ceremony was on 29th February 2024 at 9.50 AM and went on till 10.10 AM. By thanking all the participants and volunteers, the MCS announced the prize categories with respective winners.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS –

This part of the report looks at the event critically in order to analyze what could be executed better and the places where there is room for improvement. The heading is further divided into various sections to analyze each and every area of operation individually.

1. Participants Critical Analysis –

The Internal Ranking Rounds 2023 – 24 saw the highest number of voluntary participation in the history of St Joseph’s College of Law. A total of 92 teams had registered for the event with almost 276 students as participants, a total of 67 teams submitted their memorial in the month of December 2023 and further 64 teams took part in the oral rounds organized on 24th February 2024.

There was a drastic increase in the number of participants when compared to the Internal Ranking Rounds 2022 – 23 (38 teams had participated). The aim moving forward is to have all the teams who registered take part in the competition. 3 teams dropped out due to the constant postponement of oral rounds which was further due to unavoidable circumstances. Further, the Oral rounds should be organized at the earliest as soon as the new academic year commences so that the IRR panel is constituted and the teams can start vouching for the inter collegiate competition.

2.Judges Critical Analysis –

Internal Ranking Rounds 2023 – 24 saw the highest number of external advocates called in order to judge the oral rounds. A total of 63 judges took part in the event and the judges praised the organizing aspect of the event as well as the legal jargon of the students.

There was a need for 64 judges but since judges backed out at the last moment, the oral rounds in one court hall had to go with a single judge. It has to be made sure that such a situation does not occur again for the upcoming events and in case any judges want to back out, the burden has to be put on the judges to find suitable judges to fill in their shoes. The judges need to be further strictly informed about over-writing on the score as well as the calculation of the scores to be cross checked before submitting it to the court clerks.

3.Court Clerks Critical Analysis –

The court clerks for the Internal Ranking Rounds mainly consisted of the 1st years which proved to be a hurdle in the smooth happening of the event. They required extensive training in order to understand their roles and the work expected from them.

Even though there were not many hurdles, court clerks failed to take control of the proceedings which led to the time limit being overrun and the proceedings going on even after the time limit was over.

4. Judges Volunteer Critical Analysis –

The major hurdles were that there were not enough judges volunteer and further, to overcome this shortage of volunteers, the coordinators also had to fill in the shoes and act as judges volunteer. It should be made a priority that the judges' volunteers are decided and finalized at least a week before the event.

5. Scoring Committee Critical Analysis –

The scoring was divided between the faculty and each faculty was provided with one student volunteer. The purpose behind this is to finish the scoring as soon as possible as there were 64 teams and further, around 250 scoresheets which had to be checked and further entered in to the online base. A separate room must be allotted to the scoring committee since the process was chaotic and not well organized due to many numbers of volunteers and faculty in the MCS hall as well as further, mixing in with the MCS work and overall causing a lot of confusion. THE WAY FORWARD FOR MOOTING FORWARD –

The Internal Ranking Rounds was overall a success and was further the biggest Intra Collegiate Competition organized in St Joseph’s College of Law. However, few of the areas where there is room for improvement are –

1. The court clerks must be trained and briefed properly as well as to make sure that we have enough court clerks at least a week before the event.

2. The judges must be strictly briefed about overwriting the scores as well as scratching on the marks sheet. Further, they also must be informed about the calculation to negate the issues of miscalculation.

3. The scores entered in to the online database have to be cross checked a few days before the oral rounds in order to rule out any discrepancies in the entries.

4. There is a need to ensure that there are enough volunteers for the event at least a week before the event and furthermore, have back up volunteers in order to ensure that any last moment backing out will not affect the event.

The Moot Court Society thanks the Director, Principal and Vice Principal of SJCL for their guidance and support. The Moot Court Society also thanks all the faculty who helped in judging the memorials and supervising the scoring committee. We are grateful to all the Judges for setting aside their valuable time for judging the oral rounds and giving constructive feedback to the participant. The Photos of the events are attached below.