
Faculty of Law, Jamia Millia Islamia(JMI) is hosting 8th JMI National Moot Court Competition-2020 from 25th to 27th June in online mode as part of the centenary celebrations of the university.
The competition received registration from as many as 150 law institutes from across the country. Following a rigorous assessment process top 24 teams are competing in the oral rounds on 26th -27th June 2020.
The corpus of judges constitutes of lawyers, judges, and law teachers who would be critically engaging in a robust round of oral presentations and arguments.
Hon’ble Mr. Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, Judge, Supreme Court of India and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari, Chairperson of Punjab State Human Rights Commission and former Chief Justice of Patna High Court were the Chief Guest and Guest of Honour respectively in the e-Inaugural function held yesterday. The function was presided over by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Najma Akhtar. Dean of the Faculty Prof. Sajid Z. Amani chaired the programme.
Prof. Sajid Z. Amani, in his welcome address illuminated the participants about the significance of mooting in legal curriculum and training.
In her presidential address Vice Chancellor Prof. Najma Akhtar welcomed the guests and participants. She congratulated the teachers, researchers and students of the JMI for outstanding performance of the University in recently released NIRF ranking conducted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD) . Highlighting the possibility of newer avenues of learning for the participants, Prof. Akhtar asserted that organising moot court competition in online mode is one of the best examples of leveraging and adopting the information technology which has become a necessity in today’s world.
The words of wisdom expressed by Justice Ansari, the Guest of Honour, were truly motivating for the participants. He said that moot court competitions are recent phenomena which have immensely helped in producing better lawyers and judges. He emphasised that important qualities of a good lawyer are persuasiveness, good control on language and knowledge of law and a lawyer should have capacity to sustain criticism of his arguments by his opponent or the judge.
Hon’ble Justice Justice Bhat Judge, Supreme Court of India the Chief Guest of the inaugural function congratulated the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Akhtar for winning laurels for the University.
Justice Bhat appreciated the efforts of the Faculty of Law towards raising awareness in the direction of a humane approach to the contemporary challenges due to the global pandemic and its socio-economic and legal implications.
Justice Bhat spoke about the significance of Rule of Law. According to him, independent judiciary and respect and protection of fundamental rights are two most important characteristics of rule of law, especially in a democratic polity like ours.
According to Justice Bhat, whether the great values enshrined in the Constitution of India are able to fulfil the requirement of rule of law is a matter of empirical study and we should look into how the Courts have performed their duties in human rights cases.
Justice Bhat called upon the participants to develop fine legal skills like analytical ability, making good strategy, ability to appreciate opponent’s arguments and counter it with better arguments. Emphasising that a lawyer has to be ready for something unexpected, either from a judge or his opponents he stated that these challenges test the presence of mind and alertness of thoughts of the lawyers and judges.
He told the participants that by taking part in such moot court competitions they will become well-prepared for real life challenges. While focusing on the professional development of the young law students present in the event, Justice Bhat suggested that they must always preserve empathy for people who are poor, less privileged and uninformed no matter how successful they become in their professional life.
The programme concluded with a Vote of Thanks from the Convener of the Competition Dr. Mohammad Asad Malik. Dr. Malik wished the best to all the participating team and the organising committee for the competition