Delhi HC Judge, Justice Suresh Kait’s recent ‘threat’ in relation to imposing a ban on social networking sites has attracted substantial criticism. The civil judge instructed these sites to remove any “anti-religious” or “anti-social” contents by February 6, 2012 even while the media and public kicks up a hornet’s nest on the issue.

The matter stemmed from the Government filing inter alia, the following charges against 21 parties:

Section 292, Indian Penal Code (IPC): penalizing the sale, possession, exhibition, distribution, circulation etc of representations that appeal to the prurient interest and tend to deprave and corrupt person, who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
Section 153 A IPC: Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.
Section 153B IPC: Publishing imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration.
Section 295A IPC: punish deliberate or malicious intent to insults or attempt to insult the religious sentiments of the citizens of India by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise.
Thus have Indian Courts made an attempt to leash the digital dragons of the internet with the shackles of penal provisions. What remains to be seen is how effective these provisions can be, when applied on subjects not contemplated by the drafters of the Code for curbing freedom of speech and expression on the internet.

There are two points that I’d like to make through this post.

One, my disapproval of the charges framed, which I believe is due to the ambiguity in the IPC. These ambiguities make themselves apparent when the Indian position is compared to that in the United States. The second is, that maintaining editorial control over content posted on such sites cannot be filtered before publication.

An examination of the laws raise the question: how do you define a‘publisher’? To make understanding the legal soundness of the charges easy, one must juxtapose these charges with the relevant provisions of United States law, which is more specific to cyber crime.

For the sake of brevity, the position of US law can be thus briefly summarized: it is clear that sites like Facebook are distributors, similar to booksellers, news vendors and libraries, and thus have no liability for libel unless they are negligent. They could be considered as publishers by the fact that they have editorial control over their publication (here, website or online forum).

How did this position evolve?

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) protects providers of an interactive computer services such as blogs, websites, online forums etc immunity from tort liability so long as such information is provided by a third party. Section 230 does not allow such providers to be treated as publishers. In Cubby Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. (1991) the defence of ISPs being a distributor, not publisher was accepted and CompuServe was classified as a functional equivalent of a lending library. However the decision went in the opposite direction in Stratton Oakmount v. Prodigy (1995) because the site had content guidelines and an enforcement mechanism thus exercising editorial control over its content. The US District Court in Zeran v. AOL (1997) protected AOL in accordance to the rules in section 230 of CDA, since the information posted was by a third party. The position became clearer in Lunney v. Prodigy Services Company Opinion (1999) wherein the Court of Appeals held that it was not justified to impose a duty on ISPs to “employ a process for verification of the bona fides.” However the recent case of Finkel v. Facebook (2009) made the position in this context clearer. It was held that “there was no claim Facebook had any hand in creating the allegedly defamatory content,” although some of its users had. The Court rejected the plaintiff’s allegation that Facebook took an ownership interest in the private group’s messages.

It is now appropriate to examine the charges filed by the Government. It is necessary that the charges be examined ‘through the web’ of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Despite that no provision of the IT Act is a perfect fit into the situation like the CDA of the United States, s. 66A of the IT Act penalizes sending of any content which is of offensive nature or menacing character. By s. 69A (1) the Central Government can compel social networking sites to block access to their contents if they are likely to affect the sovereignty, integrity, defence, security of the country and friendly relationship with foreign states or if they constitute incitement to an offence. Any failure on the part of the ISP can attract prosecution as co accused. Thus, in a way they have a duty to remain duly diligent about their content.

How realistic is that, though? Consider the facts. There are billions of users of such sites. Those billions of users post several gigabytes of data every minute. Given this immense flow of traffic, it is humanely impossible to filter or monitor everything posted before it is published. The automated filter on such sites is incapable of filtering defamatory content as such matter is contextual in nature. Google issued a statement saying that they have a mechanism of taking down content that is illegal as per the local law. However, if the matter is legal but controversial, peoples’ differing views must be respected. In addition, when certain content is reported by other users as unacceptable, the content is taken down.

The crux of the matter is: the charges filed by the Government are ultimately ambiguous, as the IPC has not been duly amended as per the IT Act, and the shortcomings of the IT Act do not make it clear if online ‘publication’ means ‘circulation’. Bennett Coleman & Co. v. Union of India held that that ‘publication means dissemination and circulation’, but it is not yet clear if the term publication includes circulation of information in electronic form. Thus, ‘publication’ needs to be defined in the perspective of the IT Act and charges have to be framed accordingly.

This brings us to another aspect pertaining to intention or a guilty mind. It is relevant to note that, charges under s. 153A and 295A require an essential component of mens rea which cannot be proved against the service provider since it is the user who has generated the information, not the service provider. Moreover, the service provider can be prosecuted as co accused and the entire responsibility of the content cannot be imputed to them. The third party generating the defamatory matter must be included as a party too.

It is thus clear that India needs laws like the CDA which not only lay down the liabilities of the service provider with clarity, but also are at par with the technological developments unlike the IPC. I believe that certain provisions in the IPC are obsolete and cannot be saved even if constructed harmoniously with the IT Act. Besides, concern about monitoring and filtering content do not hold good due to practical difficulties which cannot be completely overcome.

We’re all too old to be told how important free speech is. Free views and thinking is the very basis of a democracy; it stems from lack of fear and paves way for development of a mature and tolerant society. According to The Living Internet, the internet is a world community and no community’s standards can govern the type of speech permissible on it. Our Government needs to realize that network neutrality is the call of a free society. It requires all information to be treated equally, without censorship, blocking or delay. However, censorship must be imposed only when the content meets certain criteria. The first few bits that we had read about our Constitution included Article 19 (1) (g). No doubt, 19 (2) spoke about restrictions, but it must be noted that it spoke of ‘reasonable restrictions’. Censoring or blocking speech on the internet is in no way reasonable as it is an attempt to choke free speech. There is no doubt that freedom of speech cannot excuse immoral, defamatory, blasphemous or seditious content. But there is no excuse for killing speech before dissemination. Thus, it is unjust on the part of the High Court to demand social networking sites to regulate their content even before it is published. Furthermore, it is inconceivable for the Court to ban social networking sites in the country. After all, man is a social animal.

The author, Uma Lohray is the Co Manager of Yours Legally and a student of Gujarat National Law University. Contact her at uma.lohray@gmail.com or leave a comment.
A copy from http://legallyyour.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/tangled-in-the-web/ 

At June end, we had to meet up at Mumbai and take help from a lawyer there who was expected to train us for the orals. Unfortunately that did not happen. However, a moot oral takes a lot of practise. We did it on our own. I was exceptionally underconfident after getting questioned by the team researchers in the mock orals. I lacked practise and it was a nasty feeling. I felt very helpless and that was discouraging. By the grace of God, that nasty feeling led me to some encouragement and I started practicing like crazy. Even while sleeping I couldn’t help getting my ideas clearer. I used to wake up in the middle of a nap and correct something that I found would be better. Basically, I was my own judge. I had to decide what would look and sound better and set my own standards. All during the day what I thought about was my arguments and how to present it the best way. Eventually, I started feeling strength and confidence. And a confident me, I knew, is very charming. I strived to look more confident about my ideas and be sure about them. There were times when we were not even sure if we were conceptually correct and that was painful. Till the last moment of orals arguments and their structure kept changing. We were up against two Indonesian teams, an Australian team and a Chinese team. During the first round, we realized that we knew absolutely nothing about arbitration and its style so we lost. After getting the judges’ feedback, we worked on it immediately and incorporated all the suggestions for the next round which was to take place in another two hours. We were to face an Indonesian team next. We were great and we won that round. It felt so good and I felt more confident for the Respondents Round which was to be the next day. My practice sessions had decreased. But I knew our rounds against Queensland would be tough and I wanted to give my best shot.

The Queensland team had a girl and a boy as oralists. The boy was okay but the girl was exceptional. I gathered that she was a grad student. She was very well versed in whatever she spoke. Her arguments could easily be countered by ours but the way she spoke was something I might have only seen in movies. Summing it in a word, she was outstanding. The judges were thoroughly impressed. I spoke last. I didn’t let her performance shake my confidence. I spoke loud and clear. I tried putting forward my points with the best articulation possible except that sometimes my sentence construction went haywire. The arbitrator asked me a question which did not pertain to my arguments. Thankfully I knew about it and answered. The best part is that I was feeling great while speaking and was enjoying the session. It had been ages since I had spoken so comfortably and confidently in a moot. I don’t know my scores but I know for a fact that both, I and the panel enjoyed the rounds. I was so happy. All the hard work had paid off as far as I was concerned. I had been so tensed for the past so many months. There was always something maritime-ish occupying my mind. I have my head clear about what to do next. I’m looking forward to going back home, having nice food, eating something different from Subway.

Hah, I’m back home and back to college too. The latter is something I was not looking forward to. The bad part is that I didn’t get to stay home too much and I’m stuck here. The semester is challenging unlike the others. The challenges include… umm.. I shouldn’t disclose that on the blog! But there are challenges. The girl who was only used to working little and getting huge results has to start working more to get the desirable. The one who never studied more than a week in advance in High School has to study everyday and even has to copy the notes of classes shes missed. Projects have piled up and she has taken a lot of things in hand already. She probably has the entire semester planned out. Gosh, this is the first time she has something planned out. Lets see if she sticks to it.

I write this as I wait in the spacious, neat and suave office of Mr. Pranith Nanavati, Patent & Trademark Attorney. I’ll be interning here during the month of May. This is my third internship in the span of two years at GNLU, after HRLN and K.K. Manan & Associates. I’ve interned less than most others in my batch have.

An internship is supposed to be a work experience where one is required to assist an advocate in all kinds of lawyering work, drafting documents, helping in research work, accompany the advocate to court and watch him plead or simply do nothing! Doing nothing is the best description most internships can be given. Last semester while interning in Delhi, I actually understood that not all interns are lucky to get work while interning. Work is ideally supposed to be snatched.

The idea of being a patent and trademark attorney had crossed my mind once in the first year when I gave up the idea of being a hardcore IPR attorney. I was told that one needs a study background in Science to get there. I still don’t know anything about IPR or patents or trademarks despite the fact that one of my parents is a patent expert and both of them know a great deal about IPR. However, they’re just words to me. I have no idea what to say if Mr. Nanavati asks me as to what these words mean. Pity, I’m interning in a Patent & Trademark firm!

12:05

Mr. Pranith Nanavati seems to be a kind and good humoured man. He assured to me that I’ll be getting dab my hands everywhere during the month. I have been introduced to quite a few people, especially the females. Everyone seems to be warm and helping. The office is neat and good looking but… it has glass walls! The dude in the cabin opposite to mine can see me typing on my laptop and the one adjacent to mine can even see that its a word file! No privacy here!!

Ever since I entered this room, I’ve been reading an injunction application & I can barely understand the descriptions mentioned here. Everything is so repetitive. I’m sure by the time I finish reading this, I’ll have all this automatically memorized. I’m going to have to finish this before evening so that I get to explore the best part of any lawyer’s office: his library!

14:09

Right at the centre of this room is a glass table. I am sitting with my laptop and a fat book on Injunctions. Guess what?! I’m in the library already. This is wow! It is loaded with books on everything. I mean, all laws. I thought books on Interpretation of Statues are only meant for college libraries until my roommate told me how thoroughly she used it in her moot. When I studied it for the exams, I came to know how important and useful a subject it was and how interesting it could be made. As reinforcement to these beliefs, I can see loads of IoS books in the library here as well… an entire shelf of IoS books. I’ll get back to reading on injunctions.

16:22

Twice I dozed off. I want to know as to where I’m going! Another hour to go before I can leave this place and catch some sleep.

18:24

I’m back to the room where I was reading the injunction application in the morning. But my sleep has vanished and I’m so excited. I have been given hell lot of reading material on Patents, Trademark and Copyrights (“for my academic interest”) and a Criminal Miscellaneous Petition scheduled for hearing tomorrow along with a bundle of supporting judgments. I thought I’d go home at 5:30 but after the long interaction with the boss, I don’t want to go! I feel like reading everything.

19:26

Finally done with everything. End of today.

With a sensitive conscience, lots of confidence and a thirst, I set on a journey hoping that I took the right decision. Once I came here, I started adapting to the environment where I could sense a race, which was definitely not for survival. We had crossed the limits of mere survival. We were in a National Law School. Students came here with a purpose. Students in a school of such eminence are supposed to absorb integrity in their character, understand righteousness, inculcate professionalism, and cultivate virtues like veracity, honour and truthfulness. My ideals were high. Very high. Eighteen years of experience being the daughter of two scientists who were passionate about Science, made me think about Law in the same way as I had seen my parents think about Science. It was not their profession, but their pursuit. I believed that my profession too, had to be my pursuit. I didn’t want to do something just to earn my bread. I wanted life in my pursuits.

In spite of this delightful attitude, I figured out that there was no force driving me. My heart didn’t beat for it. There was something missing but I didn’t know what. I knew it had to do something with some delicate feelings. I knew that I got those feelings when I hugged my mother. It had something to do with the feeling I got while resting my head on my dad’s shoulder and feeling him stroke my hair softly. I got it when my brother carried me in his arms to the living room to show me ‘Planet Earth’ on a lazy Sunday morning when I refused to wake up. I got it again while watching an old video recording of my childhood when I saw my mother encouraging me to crawl and come to her while I was struggling on my tummy lying helplessly on the mattress.

On one of the Mondays while I was rushing through my packing urgently in the morning getting ready to go to the dusty village capital, all these thoughts just fell into place and a warm feeling of realization dawned upon me. That was it! It was the feeling of being loved. That was exactly what could drive me. I realized that I am not the kind who could live and die for ‘the greater good’ or some highly revered and scantily practiced ideal. I could live and die for my loved ones. I could live and die for what my upbringing had given me. My heart could beat for a cause that could touch me. I would never be able to live like the thinkers of ivory towers laying down ‘Seven Principles of so-and-so’, ‘Ten Commandments of so-and-so’, thinking about the higher cause, analysing the society, scrutinizing the intricacies of the sovereign’s relationship with its subjects. I was not supposed to push myself to like things which sounded nice for law students. I need not feel perturbed if I didn’t have a taste for law-ish talks, philosophical literature and the ‘justice-equity-and-good conscience’ debates. Its okay to live like me. Its okay if my driving force is affection, and not competition. It does not matter if I am not efficient with complex academically inclined and philosophically loaded ideas. A tiny push from my 10 ounce heart can make me run for miles.

There is one thing that people fail to remember in the later part of their lives: We live for happiness. Everything we do is in the pursuit of happiness. It might seem too simple but life would be really beautiful if people understood this. Lofty ideas need not inspire or drive us, but happiness always should. If there is a cause that touches that 10 ounce heart and you know that by pursuing it you’re pursuing your happiness, then it doesn’t matter if you’re the nerdy thinker of the ivory tower or the happy go lucky human; you’re already armed with what you need. And once you have it, half the cause is achieved.

People say that everything we do, want, get, not get, desire, feel and think is a part of a divine plan. I wonder if I can call this divine plan, fate which would be a convenient expression for things that are out of our control. I wish to curse it because, this element has been jeopardising my happy existence. I was always such a rational creature. Everything I felt, had a simple and non-isolated reason. It was so easy to tell somebody as to ‘what happened’. But I can’t do it the same way anymore. Everything I feel has not less than twenty five reasons behind it. I fear that I have become a complicated individual. It has become very difficult to understand the behaviour of others. As I write these vague things, my mind feels numb with confusion.

I hate fate!

What does it want from me? Does it wish to test my patience and faith by placing me in ridiculous situations? What on earth did I do to earn this? Or does it want me to pick up on the threads and do something? Curie, once said that nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. But I never really learnt how to understand what fate was trying to convey. There are no butterflies flying by me certifying an upcoming event to be auspicious, like in ‘The Alchemist’, neither do I meet a random hobo who blesses me with gemstones for indication of good omens. Indications as obvious as these are fairytale. But ask somebody to make sense out of me today! Nobody can. Not even my closest associates because sometimes our actions do not make sense, even to us. And that is what I’d like to call my fate. It is like a prism. The light going inside makes sense but the visible colours of the spectrum which come out, do not. However, there is a scientific mechanism that works and once it is understood, everything makes sense.

Its been 35 days since I came to Delhi for my internship. I came with no expectations or prejudice about the kind of work I would be given. I was interning under Mr. K.K. Manan. I came to know that he was a very successful lawyer and a big name in the HC and the Trial courts. By the end of the internship, I realized that bigger the name, lesser the work (this rule applies at least upto 2nd year internships) My first day was quite unusual at the internship. The morning itself began in the most unusual fashion. I broke the heel of my shoe as I got out of the Mandi House Metro Station. I broke the other heel purposely to make it even and easier to walk. Not that I wasn’t scandalized, but I tried my best to keep my brains working holding two broken heels of the shoe I was going to wear the whole day. All day long, I was stuck in the Chamber of my advocate reading some files and taking down certain notes about the grounds of argument and the applicable law. Later, it came in handy when my advocate’s junior wanted a briefing of the case. See! At an internship, every little bit helps. So never give up working.

I was joined by four batch mates from GNLU and a girl from NALSAR on the second day and the day was not bad. We went to the High Court of Delhi and attended the hearing of a civil case. The case was going on since 1950! The Judge, Vikramjeet Sen, cared to mention that the advocates dealing in the matter ‘were not even born’ in 1950. I’d never forget that the ‘NALSAR chick’ (the nomenclature I used for her, in my mind) got her cell phone seized in that court coz it made noise while she was switching it off. Cell phones are not allowed in Courts. Never mind, it was a bad hair day for her. I decided to be particularly careful with my cell phone in the coming days. At internship, you don’t have the time to learn from your own mistakes. In order to save time, you learn from others’ mistakes. Sounds wise, I know.

In the coming few days, I attended the High Court. I went to so many court rooms and tried observing and absorbing it. There are certain things, one learns only by observing. Saves time, again and it saves the pain of experiencing it once you’re on that dice arguing your case, in course of time. I also sat in some really boring court rooms. I realized that sitting in any Court cannot be a waste experience. There is something to learn everywhere. Maybe I can’t list down things I learnt, but I realized constantly that I got smarter than what I was 10 minutes back!

I particularly enjoyed Justice Hema Kohli‘s court because of the way she dismissed the cases. But I lost taste for it very soon. She was extremely strict and as per my research, she was a feminist, which I’m sure, has already prejudiced your opinion. Another court room I liked, was that of Judge Sistani. I loved that way he handled cases which involved a family. He seemed like quite an ideal judge to me. While deciding the amount of maintainance, he had once enquired the price of a bowling-round in a mall! Justice A. K. Pathak‘s court was also a delight. He reminded me of the illustration on the cover of the book on Torts by Ratanlal and Dhirajlal Publications. The illustration had the picture of a Judge who looked exactly like him: old, nearly bald, white haired and cute. I also attended the CJ’s court which had on-going matters related to hygiene at Anganwadi centers, prescription of NCERT books in some school etc. I remember how the Judge rebuked the Deputy Director of the school for not standing straight before the bench. Small things can be really important in a court room. I had fun listening to in-court and off-court humor from Ashish sir, who was a junior associate under Mr. Manan. I came to know that Justice Hema Kohli can mercilessly insult a man for not wearing his shirt properly. A judge had thrashed a rich client, left and right for wearing a flashy red Armani jacket to the hearing. In the coming days, the poor guy was seen wearing the simplest clothes known to ‘Courtkind’ (I just derived it from mankind).

I did attend trial courts also. But it did not leave a print on me. I attended hearings at Patiala House and Saket courts. The Patiala House courts were being shifted to Saket. Patiala House was originally the erstwhile palace of the Maharaja of Patiala near India Gate. His successors won a suit against the government which is why Patiala was being vacated. Patiala House caught my fancy. Not the Courts; only the chambers. It felt like coming home. Those extremely narrow passages, enough for 3 people to walk in parallel, have indeed left an imprint on my mind. Maybe it depicts various shades of the profession. Its difficult to describe, but I’ll try. There are around 800 chambers and over 3500 lawyers in Patiala. When I came there every morning and found my way towards Mr. Manan’s chamber, I passed by many chambers & saw many advocates: filthy rich, average, poor; successful, struggling, failure; young, middle aged, old, ancient (!); very busy, busy, jobless; quiet, chatty, noisy. I tried to decipher the numerous things that the environment was trying to convey. There is lots of struggle in the profession. Lots of politics, lots of rush, lots of hard work; there is lots to see and lots to learn. The possibility of being a part of this fraternity occurred to me and it seemed strange. A multitude of questions swarmed into my mind. Could I be a part of this scene someday? Would I like it? What all will I have to go through? What will it change me into? Will it be worth it? It was like a wholly different world. I’m sure there is no other place which gives such a comprehensive picture of the people practicing this profession at Trial Courts in India.

Mr. Manan was kind enough to give us some Cr. P.C. related research work which we tried to do to the best of our ability. Sitting beside him (read: squeezed with Ramya in one seat) in his Benz when I asked him whether he liked our work, he was full of praise for GNLU students. However, nothing could match the feeling when Ashish sir showed confidence in me being capable of ‘spilling fire all around’ when I litigate! He was the only lawyer who interacted with us, useless & neglected feeling interns. Talking to him gave me a lot of insight as a novice in the court. He used to, occasionally, give us files which we were supposed to guard with our lives! Remember, files are supposed to be guarded with lives.

Today when I look back, I feel that this month has taught me a lot. I’ve gone through a lot of things. I liked it all the more because there was not even a single day that I got bored. This happens to be an advantage of interning with batch mates. When we had no work (which was true most often) or finished work early, we didn’t waste time.. we went and had fun: Visited tourist spots, ate outside, clicked pictures, went shopping, watched movies. Had, all possible fun. In the middle of so many good things if I had to do my laundry and wash my utensils, I think it was all worth it. My sister had been very kind to leave me food whenever she came, which was very often. Thanks to her, I didn’t have Maggi for dinner everyday. Otherwise, for the kind of genius that I am at cooking, I never attempted to cook anything other than Maggi and its variants. However, this doesn’t inspire me to start paying attention to my feeble culinary skills.

I learnt a lot of things, met people, got to know them, saw things, underwent experiences. I learnt how to kill mosquitoes effortlessly! I also learnt that old shoes can also give you shoe bites if you don’t have a sock. Overall, ‘Delhi’ was an event this time and it was memorable.

I’ve lost patience to go through this post now. Please excuse mistakes, if any and uneven flow of ideas.

I mooted this time. General practice at GNLU is that everyone registers themselves with partners for the first round and one can back out any moment before the memo submission. Initially I almost backed out when I saw the kind of people taking part. My! All big shots!! Yea, yea.. I’ve been abnormally low on self confidence after Sem 1. I was not used to being humiliated in the Moot Court (any stage for that matter..); I had never tasted 40+ ranks; I had never settled for anything less that ‘very good’. All that happened in the first semester. My parents and friends encouraged me against backing out. Specially Ujjvalya Anand (Vyuj, as I call her). She was my partner for the first intras. We finished our memo somehow. Sujoy Datta helped a lot! I can’t imagine that moot without Ujjvalya and Sujoy. Our moot was scheduled last. Last. We reported at 2:00 pm and our moot began at 5:00 pm. All our freshness and enthusiasm wore off. Then, it got over. I dont want to recall how! We were okay. Not great, definitely. I’d like to particularly mention one document though… the Application form of the French Embassy. Sujoy gave me that, hours before the moot. That was one impressive document. You may not understand the context. But it did one great thing: Projected my pathetically scanty research like one awesomely padded piece of work! It was impressive. Rest all was not.

On the day of the moot results, I strategically went back to hostel in order to avoid all the embarrassment which generally follows moot results. I switched on my laptop back in my room and started doing IPC Project. Rohit, my Luthra moot-partner texted, ‘saw the moot results.. way to go.’ I was taken aback. The message didnt mention my rank and that left a lot of scope for imagination. I expected a double digit rank.. 15, 16… 20.. What? Just then Harshit Chandra called. I frowned. I was not on talking terms with him. He’d annoyed me two days back. Thoroughly annoyed, I took the call expecting it to be “Sorry” or similar crap. He shouted, “You got rank 2, girl! Rank two!! I’m the first one to inform you.. I want a party..!” I tried to shut him up, thinking of it as some lame trick to patch up! He reiterated his point. Re-, re-, re- and hung up with a congrats. It took a couple of minutes to sink in. I rushed to Ujju’s room and yeah… he was right. Plus, Ujju had also made it! Her third try and she got selected. I must admit, I was happier for her. I tried to find out Sujoy and Siddharth’s (Sujoy’s partner, B) rank. To my utter disappointment, both had not made it. “The Sujoy Datta” got rank 100! After I went through the rankings by hearsay, all the euphoria had faded away. It didn’t matter what rank I got. All these days, a 40+ rank made me sad.. Strange, how a rank 2 didn’t make things better. I realized that happiness is such a holistic concept. It may not come with a rank 2. But it can come with all friends not making it, yet partying together, celebrating togetherness. I felt like not going further with it. But thats not how life goes… you do well when you’re not overwhelmed by consequences. You just move on. It took a lot of pep talk for me to understand this. I chose arbitration moots. My problem is out and I haven’t done a jack of it, but thats because I’m down with fever. Never mind…

I had also participated in the India Law Journal’s Locito Concurso-’10 essay writing. Harshit and I were supposed to be writing it together during the holidays. I did it alone!! He had some problems and managed to contribute the last few paragraphs. But thank God, he did. That did help me meet the word limit. I tried to write it well, but it was a 5 day job, with my fever and internship at HRLN. To my surprise, the article earned an honorable mention at rank 13. I was happy again. It meant something because it was authentic work. Again, it was Kirti Dashora who spent 1.50 to text me a Congratulations. But she didn’t mention why. But, so nice of her..

Kirti is the cutest and funniest thing on Earth!
Vyuj, as everyone says, will win an Oscar one day.. for her voice! But it’s already got an Oscar from me, for having the capability to turn me on, no matter what.
Sujoy is such a sport. He happens to be one of the most seasoned individuals I know. But he looks like an owl!
Harshit is fun. Hes an aunty who can be spotted mostly with girls who are either not talking to him, or pulling his air out of frustration.

If life at GNLU is fun, its because of people like these.. and so many of them whom I haven’t mentioned. Oops, I had to buy Soumya Priyadarshinee a Crackle! My roomie… who supplies me with good music, great gossip,  quite a lot of encouragement and food for thought constantly.

When I came to GNLU, I was a 17 year old, unassuming, naive, principled, innocent idiot (mind it, its a legal term!). Besides school, teachers, friends and parents, the atmosphere at home which was perpetually brimming with spirituality, made me believe in the goodness of the world. Regularly watching the episodes of Mahabharata and listening to philosophical discussions on the Geeta, always strengthened my belief in something called ‘the theory of karma’. As you sow, so shall you reap. But GNLU taught me how to how to “show” the world that ‘I sowed, and none but me, is entitled to reap…’, so you dare not touch MY candy! This “show”, is called politics. I never thought it’d be this easy to define politics so contextually after I gave up the painful Political Thought classes!

I never understood the relevance (differentiate from Importance) of ‘Go, bat your eyelids.. and everything will be fine.’ Its actually so true, not in the strict sense of the word though. Be it a moot, or life… it is so important to “show”. I have come across people who have written quality papers for others, which eventually got published in Journals of repute while they sacrificed the credit on the pretext of ‘learning’. Credit definitely needs to be grabbed; and what I learnt was that even credit for your own work, needs to be grabbed before some swine does.

I am not used to this pain and I promised myself today that I’d never allow myself to taste it.

Show works… and this is showtime.

‘I hereby clarify that’ I am not an academically inclined mortal, commonly referred to as ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’. The sole purpose of my life is not a 7 point GPA. I suffer due to my annoying ability of looking studious and sincere while I’m (hell) not! Considerate friends are requested to believe that I am no dweeb humanoid. I appreciate small (and big) pleasures. I cherish the idea of tasting all flavors of vodka specially buffalo grass and the Traditional Polish Vodka. Okay, that was just a rustic example; doesn’t mean anything!

Finally, under peer pressure, I am contemplating the idea of renaming the blog.

I came across an answer to a question that always bothered me: “Law is an ass”.. I always wondered why until I came across Mr. Bumble’s complete dialogue which made me understand the context. The answer didn’t turnout to be a high class philosophical eye opener as I thought it would be, even then, I want to go through the complete book & I thought these vacations would be the best time. But, in vain. The whole internship business is taking most of my time, and the rest is taken up by HBO! Hmm.. but I can’t help it.

I wanted to get good work to do & I got great work! Initially, I expected to be a part of some typical NGO work. But naah… its like a second year trial court internship (sans the knowledge of 2nd year Law..!). They put me into quite some things. The 2002 Godhra carnage, to start with. And then the Asharam bapu Ashram Scandal. As if this wasn’t enough to excite me.. they put me into Shorabuddin. I was so excited! Riot trials, CBI Court, Amin arguing his case. Heh! this is life. But contrary to my expectations, I had to sit in a corner in the Courts and take a note of the proceedings. Sometimes it was easy and sometimes very difficult. I got to see the district court once. But that was the only good that came out of it. The proceeding got postponed for 3-4 hours and it didn’t happen only because the Prosecution was not prepared. Bah.. a mockery of the judiciary. Such a high profile case and this is how it’s dealt with. No wonder the system is chocking with endless backlogs!

On the first day, I went to the Sessions Court for the Riot trials. I abruptly entered the Court room. There was a large crowd of all the ‘accused’ sitting there. The crowd is a little scary. All sorts of rough looking people: huge, fat, irascible and peppery. It was damn noisy… but it took 3 seconds for everything to settle down. Because the moment I entered, they all fell silent and stared at me like a herd of ill tempered rhinos & I felt like a bait been put into their cage!(Not trying to show off or anything, as its strictly not my area) I retraced my steps as soon as I could and started looking for my supervisor. It is then that it occurred to me what I had been told before going there: “that Court is not a place where young girls or women from good families go, which is why you could be a perfect misfit out there, an object of attention and people may try to constantly bug you.” Fortunately, I found my supervisor very soon and the rest of the day was very normal. There were a couple of Doctor witnesses who were testifying post mortem reports. Honestly speaking, the process was very painful but in the end, all that seemed worth it. The lady judge was all dignified, strict, no-nonsense women, with a zest to deal with the case perfectly. She attracted my instant like. I also experienced things I may never forget: being pestered by stupid and odd people; being bugged by someone, I later came to know as one of the main accused in the riots and the Valentines day hungama, which undoubtedly sent a chill down my spine! But it was still not a big deal.

But this is what is the big deal: The Secret is working! The other day, I was asked to go to the D. K. Trivedi Commission (Asharam scandal). Before going I just had this random but ‘real’ ‘thought’ about getting to chat with the Judge and create a good impression on him (the usual wannabe shit! .. can’t help it!). The first thing he asked me was “Are you a practicing advocate?” I was taken aback and I told him that I was a first year. Bah… and he feel like an insignificant entity by making me sit in the corner! I, as instructed by my supervisor back in the office, took down the proceedings although there were hardly any! The witnesses didn’t turn up and everything got over in an hour and a half. That is when he asked me to take the front seat, asked me all general stuff about college, family etc. AND Rylands v. Fletcher! I told him all what I knew about the case which brought him to Torts and we had a discussion on it. Never in my wackiest dreams had I thought that paying attention in some of those bore Torts classes (I paid attention in all of them!) would give me such decent returns with interest! But that wasn’t all… he started to question me about the day’s proceedings and I answered from whatever little I understood. I was a scared chicken until his face lighted up with a 110 watt smile! And I would never forget the “very good” ^3!! From the corner of my eye I could notice the rest of the lawyers smiling at all this & before I knew, I started feeling all warm and thankful (to the Secret) inside. I mean, c’mon, it was one random ‘thought’… which actually became a ‘thing’!
The other day I wanted to get home early and the Court ended even before lunch! I wanted to read some nice stuff & I caught hold of this really nice blog called ‘Law and Other Things’. Can’t put down everything because the list is so long. Every damn thing I want is right in front of me!! It-is-so-easy.. I feel like hugging myself (and also Sandy and Indu who were kind enough to introduce me to it)!

I guess, posting here is more like a once-in-a-semester ritual! I should get more frequent, now that life will get more happening.. Bhaiya would be happy with this one, I hope.

Right.. a moot experience. Moots. Umm.. google it! Since the day I joined law school, I’ve had a hard time explaining people what ‘moots’ are. As a novice, it had been a cause of fear for me. I couldn’t sleep the first two nights in hostel. Courtesy: moot fear! No body except my mother, knew this. But I’ve been honest enough to admit this here. But my first moot (on parliamentary privileges, which everyone thought, was too difficult for first years) was extremely pleasant. The judges (first semester judges are our own GNLU professors) were late by an hour. Ordinarily, out of anxiety, I would have eaten away my fingers. But I calmly sat there, sipping water (I had preserved some water that I brought from home. I might have considered it a good luck charm. God alone knows!). Let me cut it short.. it was over in 1/2 an hour. And I got rank 22. Fortunately made it to top 30s. Then another moot & I got a chance to represent GNLU at the 6th K. K. Luthra Memorial Moot Court as the team researcher. This one was International Criminal Law. Initially I was very very sad.. but some very kind seniors consoled me.

If not anything else, this moot has definitely made it clear for me that Int’l Cr. Law is not my cup of tea. Public Int’l Law, to be precise. The new semester started in January. By January end, I finished my moots. Now, everything is a little different. I’m at peace.

The most recent development is ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne. My dear friends, Sandy and Indu made me watch that short movie instead of asking me to read the book. Very thoughtful of them… Lately I’ve been trying to experiment with those techniques.
I wont crib and tell you how my Contracts faculty gave me a difficult topic for the project i.e. Construction Contracts which is to be submitted on 15 March. I also wont mention how difficult Sociology & Political Science are.

I’ll just tell you that dad and mom have bought a new car, SX4. I like it & it has actually made me enthusiastic to learn driving. I also plan to learn certain other tings like changing the tyre etc. I certainly cant imagine myself being the sort of person who can, at the most ‘kick’ the tyre when its flat & ring ‘Papa’!

I’m damn sleepy.. I wrote this for the brat who generally threatens to throw me out of the window without opening it (Lame!). Not that I’m scared of him… he could do nothing to me as long as he lived with us at home. Hes two continents and one ocean away now (okay I know, the world is round!). As if he could have done anything if I didn’t post anything… Since I’ve posted a post here, he should do me a favor in return: complete his project & come home!!

Forgive all spelling and grammar mistakes.. I’m in a phantasmagoria, lately!