RILS 1st National Moot Court Competition 2023

In recent years, moot courts have emerged as an indispensable part of legal education. I must say this is a great teaching innovation in the sphere of legal education. Finding innovative ways of doing things is the need of the hour. The spirit of competition should also be channelled into activities which give the students better preparation for their careers.

It is with this idea and notion that our institution, Ramaiah Institute of Legal Studies had decided to conduct our 1^st National moot Court Competition. In the past two days, we have witnessed more than 90 students from all across the country participating in our Moot Court Competition.

The RILS 1^st National Moot Court Competition 2023, began with the inauguration ceremony held on the 2^nd of March, 2023 at 5:00 PM. We saw the arrival of 30 teams with a total of 90 students for the day. We were honoured to have the presence of Justice P. Krishna Bhat, former Judge at the High Court of Karnataka with us for the inauguration. Sir was kind enough to take time off his busy schedule to come join us for the event. We started the ceremony with the lighting of the lamp and flower tribute to the visionary Dr. M S Ramaiah followed by the welcome speech by Himanshu Sharma, 5^th year student at RILS. Following this, Honble Justice Krishna Bhat spoke to us about the relevance of conducting moot court competitions in law schools and how it caters to the development of advocacy skills in young lawyers in the Chief Guest’s Address. Sir also shared with us many of his interesting encounters during his time as a judge at the high court of Karnataka. We then moved on to the Principal’s Address where Dr. Vinayaka K shared with us his take on moot court competitions and our institution’s drive and zeal to organize the national moot court competition.

Following this we moved on to the most awaited moment of the inaugural ceremony, the unveiling of the trophies of the 1^st National Moot Court Competition, 2023. Honble Justice P Krishna Bhat, Principal Dr. Vinayaka K and the student conveners of the moot court committee, Anjan and Aditi unveiled the trophy to all the participants.

With this, we proceeded to the vote of thanks by Anjan R and then, the draw of lots for the preliminary round of the moot court competition. All 30 teams picked the lots and they were assigned their roles and court halls during the session. After the draw of lots, the rules and regulations were reiterated and all queries of the students were answered. With this we came to the end of our inaugural ceremony.

The second day of our event marked the beginning of the oral rounds of the moot court competition. All participants and judges had arrived at RILS by 9:30 AM on the 3^rd of March. We had 90 participants and 17 judges who had come to preside over the rounds. The first set of preliminary rounds began around 10:15 AM and went on till 11:45 AM. After this we had a small break, following which the second set of preliminary rounds began at 12:20 PM. The rounds came to an end by 1: 40 PM after which had our lunch break.

The results of the preliminary rounds were announced around 2: 45 PM and the top 8 teams based on the marks awarded to them were selected for the quarter finals. The draw of lots took place immediately and the quarter final rounds began around 3:10 PM. The rounds came to an end at 4:30 PM and around 5:15 PM, the results of the quarter finals were declared on the basis of knock outs and the 4 selected teams, proceeded to the draw of lots for the semi-finals

On the 4^th of March, after the arrival of the semi-final teams, the two rounds began at 10:10 AM and went on till 12 PM. Following the lunch break, we declared the results and began the final rounds of our moot court competition, here in the seminar hall at 1:00 PM. We witnessed a magnificent exchange of arguments here today in the presence of our guests of honour, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Shivashankar Amarannavar, Judge at the High Court of Karnataka, Dr. Suresh V Nadagoudar, Dean and Principal of University Law College, Bangalore, Sri. Manoj Pillai, Advocate at the Supreme Court of India who presided over the final round. Following this, we have begun the valedictory ceremony here at 3:45 PM. The results were announced around 5 P M after the address by the guests of honour. We had the vote of thanks by Ms. Aditi Bose and following this we wound up the event after the photo session.