Moot Court inaugurated by Sri Ujjal Bhuyan,Hon’ble Justice, Gauhati High Court Seminar on Legal Education and challenges faced in quality litigation

Sri Ujjal Bhuyan, Hon’ble Justice, Gauhati High Court inaugurated the Moot Court in Royal School of Law & Administration on 27 May 2017 at Royal Global University. It was followed by a Seminar on ‘Legal Education and Challenges Faced in Quality Litigation’. Eminent personalities like Retd.Justice Sri.B.D.Agarwal, Dr.O.K.Medhi, Ex-VC, Gauhati University, Mr. J.S Patil, VC, National Law University, Guwahati, Dr.Bhaskarjyoti Kr Hazarika, HOD, Department of Law, Tezpur University, Dr.Matiur Rahman, Associate Professor, Gauhati University Law College, Mr.Debajit Das, Advocate, Gauhati High Court, Ms.Rakhee Choudhury, Advocate, Gauhati High Court and other members of the law fraternity.

The topic of the seminar being on Legal Education and challenges faced in quality litigation, Prof.(Dr.) S.P.Singh,Vice-Chancellor, RGU, stressed on litigation, remuneration, scope of abroad jobs, corporate jobs, quality students for litigation, long gestation period and the advantages of good litigation lawyers.

Ms. Rakhi Chowdhury, Advocate, Gauhati High Court  spoke on How the different fields of education are clubbed with legal education in context of various social, economic, political and scientific aspects. Advantages of moot court and several new facets of legal education, opportunities of law has increased over the years, remuneration provided to the litigation students are meager and in turn de-motivates the students to pursue the practical court sessions further. The long waiting hours adds to the disinterest of the students, theoretical part different from the practical part and students should be taught how the legal practice works, the other nuances like the cause list, settle a bag, filing, books etc.

Dr. Matiur Rehman, Associate Professor, Gauhati University Law College, Focused and talked on how the growth of law schools and law universities have taken the legal education onto a different level and how it has grown manifold. He also spoke on the demand of legal education in the field of humanities, commerce, science & technology. Legal education & quality litigation are related to each other and is the need of the hour. Clinical legal education is a modern way of legal education and should be given top priority and should be included in the curriculum. There has been a rapid change in the outlook of the legal education and he further cited the example of Taj Mahal as the best way to understand quality litigation

Mr. Debojit Kumar Das, Advocate, Gauhati High Court spoke on Jurisprudence as the subject matter of discussion in the world law scenario, quality of legal education in the law colleges were dismal as compared to today and adhocism was a rule, mediocrity the scenario. He talked on the Advocate Act which started functioning in the year 1960, system of improving the quality of law colleges should be taken care of. Because of adhocism of the bar council, the quality of legal education has suffered. He also spoke about the concept of apprenticeship, stipend system that should be looked after by the bar council.

Mr. Bhaskar Chakraborty, HOD, Department of Law, Tezpur University, spoke on how to improve legal education. He added that there should be career academic teachers. He spoke on PSDA - Professional skill development activities and also mentioned that it should be introduced in the curriculum of all the law courses to make the students ready to face the practical aspect of law and improve the learning methods. Professional aspect should be given prominence to improve the quality of students. Revision of course structure should be taken up. Introduction of workshops, seminars both at regional & national levels should be conducted on a regular basis. A law course should be of minimum 5 years. The two regulatory bodies – UGC & The Bar Council should come forward with some better ideas to improve legal education and thus make better lawyers in the country.

Mr. J.S Patil, VC, National Law University talked about colonization, plurality of culture, general panorama of high education and that BAR council is money centric. Justice is administered and further questioned about the panorama of litigation in our country. He spoke about heuristics and the law.

Mr. Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, Gauhati High Court , talked about docket explosion – problems and arrears of delay in case settlements. He further added that we should tune & sensitize ourselves to the constitution and unless the system is de-clogged, there cannot be a good quality of litigation. A practical study/approach will be able to hone the skills of the students and a facility like the moot court will improve the quality of mooting of the students. He said that the arrears and pendency of the cases should be taken care of and stated that the relation between a senior and junior cannot be quantified/measured in terms of money. He spoke on about national judicial data grid, computerization of the courts, econnectivity, uploading of all the cases of the day with a uniform case number which will travel all throughout the litigation journey of the litigant, digitization record system and about lok adalats, plea bargaining, free press and free judiciary.

Questions were asked from the august audience to which the panelists answered moderated by Ms.Rakhee Choudhury.