The Commonwealth Moot Court competition, organised by the first batch of law students from Christ University came to an end on February 22. "The Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) approached us with a proposal to organise the event,” said Swagata Raha, faculty secretary for the Moot Court. “CLEA has been organising the Moot Court competition, in which student teams representing universities from Commonwealth nations compete for the Turnbull Shield,” says Raha.

“The Commonwealth Moot Court competition was started in 1983 and is now a biannual feature. The final round of last year’s competition was held in Nairobi, Kenya. It was won by the Australian team,” said Dr Jose Varghese, head of the law school at the Christ University. While the host college funds the national level competition, the winner's flight to the Turnbull Shield is sponsored by CLEA.

Among the 22 teams that participated,  eight got through the preliminary rounds and four went to the quarter finals. The students are a relaxed and satisfied lot after the three-day Moot Court competition,” says Gautam Chawla, a third-year student and student convenor. The winning team will travel to Hong Kong in the first week of April. The winners were Aanchal Jain, Rachita Raj, both fourth-year students and Vikramaditya Malik, a third-year student from Hyderabad. The winners  spoke to DNA:

What hurdles did you face when you got into the competition?
We researched on the topic  every hour of the day. We spent hours poring over books in the library. The last two weeks have been hectic. We’ve had sleepless nights as the date of the competition approached.

How did the three of you come together to compete as a team?
We formed a team because we ‘mooted’ in many other competitions as well. We share a great bond. We had to compete with teams from our own college.

How challenging was the competition at Christ College?
The topic was ‘The Proliferation of Nuclear Materials and Technology’. The participants had to represent the Republic of Aarkan and the United Territories of Astania versus The Byzentic Republic of Zamanko. This was the hypothetical problem prepared by Mohit Abraham, an advocate with the Supreme Court for the Moot Court Competition 2009. We did a lot of research on the topic, but we found  that the judges were very well informed on the subject of International Relations. It has been a tough competition.

How do you feel about travelling to Hong Kong for the finals?
We are looking forward to the trip to Hong Kong. The final round is in the first week of April. Though we will celebrate our win here, we have to start working towards the finals. We are happy to be part of such a prestigious event, where we will be representing India.

Odeal D’Souza/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication