The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata emerged winners of the Gurcharan Singh Tulsi Memorial Criminal Law Moot Court competition organised by the NALSAR Law University.
The Indian Law School (ILS) Law College, Pune bagged the second position among the 23 teams from across the country. The competition dealt with laws of arbitration, criminal law and sports law intertwined to present a factual matrix concerning white collar crimes.
While the best speaker prize was awarded to Ishan Shivakumar of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, the prize for the best memorial (written submissions) went to the National Law University, Jodhpur.
The finals were evaluated by a bench of three eminent judges comprising K. Ramaswamy, retired Judge of the Supreme Court; Y. Bhaskar Rao, former Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court and B. Seshasayan Reddy, Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
The two-hour long session was marked by exceptional mooting skills, moments of nervousness and incessant humour from the judges, as the students fought hard to win the ‘case’ for their respective ‘clients’.
Later, Justice Ramaswamy and Justice Bhaskar Rao spoke about the necessity of moot courts in law schools and how the paradigm of legal education has shifted from traditional classroom teaching to learning through such competitions. Justice Ramaswamy explained that the lines separating distinct bodies of law were very thin indeed and when students become lawyers, they had to be aware of these distinctions to succeed in life.
The competition was sponsored by K.T.S Tulsi, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, in the memory of his father, Gurcharan Singh Tulsi.