ASSOCIATES ARE SWEET

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Associates are sweet. This is what I could hear when I was enquiring about Hammurabi & Solomon from those who had already interned there. Today (23.05.2010) when almost two weeks of my internship is over I have no reason to disbelieve it. On 9^th of May when I landed in the office I had no experience of a corporate law firm. So far on paper I have done three internships (excluding this) but out of them, only one internship was properly done, which was in the Supreme Court. Unlike my last internship in the Supreme Court, this time I wasn’t excited at all. If I try to attribute some reason to it, my inclination towards constitution law seems to be only possible reason. If you think I am intending to say that I dislike business law then you are not absolutely wrong till now.

My cautious statement in the last line is due to some new experiences which I have acquired during this internship. In this internship I have been conditioned to believe that the term corporate lawyer is a misnomer, and in fact a corporate lawyer can do anything ranging from constitution to crime and punishment and if you are intelligent enough you can also handle IPR. Whatever be the connotation of corporate lawyer, one thing is sure that corporate law is not everyone’s affair. Though I am very junior to say this still I know I am right to a large extend and my remark is also not unfounded. It is based on my experience of two weeks of internship.

My internship started with Big Brother watching me. Office starts every day at 9:30 a.m. and it is scheduled to end at 7:00 p.m. but your (associates as well as interns) departure depends on the presence of boss in the office. If he is still in the office and working till 9:00 p.m. you have no scope of leaving before 9:15 p.m. This too extended office hour caused me a lot of trouble in the first week. I terribly struggled to keep my eyes open and stop falling down on the desk. This went even worse when I noticed CCTV cameras in the office and was warned by one of the associate to not take even a nap because Big Brother is watching.

Anyways, when going gets tough, tough gets going. After lunch break I always managed to stay awake easily due to piling works on my table. First thing which I did before being formally assigned to any team, was a small research on revocation of license deed. This wasn’t a big one and didn’t even take much time still I enjoyed reading the Easement Act. At the end of my first day in the office I was qualified to become a clerk in any department of Bharat Sarkar. I had more than 100 pages of typing that day itself and all of them were confidential and I agreed to not disclose any one of them to anyone. It was very strange to see that all typing works are done by associates and there is no typist in the office. Reason for this is best known to them but for me first day was not a fascinating one at all.

Frankly speaking there was nothing fascinating in the office except Saturday’ lunch which you get in the office without lightening your wallet. In college we always crib about BA subjects as having no utility for students of law but there are moments in life when you go wrong in your observations. We has Psychology paper last semester. I learnt in that subject about social loafing (taking advantage of working in a group by just pretending to work but actually doing no work) and realized its importance in my internship. Please do not be under the impression that I have never done loafing in group works before, but all I am saying is that social loafing has been inherently present in me still I never exercised it consciously but this time I was doing it consciously. Any ways since my story for first week is not worthy of too many mentioning, I can now proceed to second week of my internship.

Second week was a remarkable time period for me as well as for the state of Jharkhand. Mr. Shibu Soren was relishing his post of Chief Minister of Jharkhand under Article 164(4) of the Constitution of India. Under the aforesaid Article any person can become Chief Minister/Minister without being an MLA but he/she will have to become an MLA within six months of appointment as Chief Minister/Minister. Mr. Shibu Soren was availing this opportunity under the same provision of the Constitution for the third time in a row. First time when he became CM he had to vacate his office within a few days after a lot of political drama. In second assembly election of Jharkhand he again availed same provision and become CM without being an MLA. He contested election to fulfill the mandate of Article 164(4) but lost it and hence resigned from his office. This was third time he was holding the post of Chief Minister under same provision. It is important to note hear that any person appointed as Minister/Chief Minister shall cease to be so at the expiry of six months which means all election procedures have to be completed within a period of six months and therefore any person appointed as Minister/Chief Minister in the aforesaid manner shall announce name of the constituency he/she is willing to contest the by-election from before expiry of six months. This in turn means somebody who is already an MLA from that constituency should resign from it. Every electoral process requires a minimum of 40-42 days for its successful completion. For Shibu Soren by the end of second week of my internship, there was hardly a month left for expiry of his tenure of six months. This in effect means that by no means it was possible for him to continue as Chief Minister except by ditching novel spirit of the Constitution (after taking oath to uphold it).

My firms’ partner has some close links with politics in Jharkhand and he was very interested in filing a petition in the Supreme Court so that Shibu Soren can be removed from his office before the expiry of six months as it was impossible by now for him to continue as Chief Minister under the laws of India. Though on plane reading of the said Article it appears that any person appointed under Article 164 (4) shall cease to be Minister/Chief Minister only and only after the expiry of six months but my friends from law can very well understand that we can still have grounds of challenge. To get a little bit of clue kindly recall D C wadhwa case which deals with misuse of ordinance making power. Plane reading of the Constitution gives plenary power to the State as well as Union legislature under relevant provisions to make ordinances unimpeded by any floor or ceiling on the number of times it can be exercised. Similarly in the present matter we were also emphasizing on over use of Article 164 (4). There are many intricacies involved in this matter but I would avoid all of them for the sake of brevity.

Coming back to internship again, I was made part of the team (on my request) who was assigned the work of preparing the petition. It is better if we don’t talk about the way research work started off but anyways its’ my pleasure to tell all of you that nobody in the team could do research as good as mine. In fact crux of the petition was backed by authorities found by me. A research which would have ordinary taken two days on my part continued till the end of next week due to social loafing. Finally we rushed to the Supreme Court to file the Petition so that we can have its mentioning next day and matter could get listed as early as possible. Well, what happened after this is not very important because even I have no idea about the fate of this Petition except for the fact that vacation bench did not feel any urgency in the matter and hence it was left for hearing in usual court proceedings after summer vacations. In the meanwhile Mr. Shibu Soren resigned and fuss in our firm dried down. This was the end of my third week of Internship.

Please note that along with the above Petition I was simultaneously being assigned many minor research as well as clerical works and all of which I successfully completed with the help of social loafing. To give one example, one day I was asked to find out whether we can file a case in consumer court under certain situation and I was supposed to read and tell them exact position of law. I opened a book on consumer protection, pretended researching for the whole day and in the evening I spoke some legal bullshit and said in my opinion I don’t think we can go to consumer court J.

Back home I had to attain my sisters’ wedding. I was crossing each day on calendar out of anxiousness. Every passing day was an ordeal for me. Soaring summer temperature in Delhi, spicy food in every meal, going to bed late at night (that too on floor) and getting up early in the morning were some of the things adding to my miseries. The only consoling factor was my office. You may be surprised to see a sudden change in my stance as I have begun this blog with Big Brother watching but let’s not forget that the very heading of this blog is “associates are sweet”. Kriti Ma’am, Sangy Ma’am, Deepak Sir and last but the most Sushil Sir are some of the associates with whom I ended up developing a close bond. Till an extent even Sonia Ma’am supported me a lot in my works and on personal level by providing some advices as she was the only National Law School pass out associate in the firm (NLIU Bhopal). Out of all of them if I were to ask my fingers to type about only one of them, then obviously that person will be Sushil Sir. A great man at heart and even better friend with 24/7 helping attitude, he cannot be described in words and luckily I was part of his team. So far in my all internships I have not received any stipend but on the last day of my this internship I finally got it when Sushil Sir after giving me his visiting card asked me to ring him any time for any help.

EXPERIENCING THE APEX

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In winter semester break of my 2nd year I am interning with Ms. Anitha Shenoy (AoR). On the first day itself I visited the Supreme Court and could hear some of the best lawyers of India. Uday Lalit was the first person in that list of best lawyers. Unarguably solid in his oration and honest in his appearance, he never appeared to me, swayed by motives of winning the case. On the contrary he was ready to appreciate the logical conclusion (in that particular case of murder where he was defence counsel) despite not being in his favour. This was just the beginning of my lifetime experience. Back in the office I had an interesting criminal case to deal with. It was probably one of the most brutal criminal offence committed on the planet. Ma’am was appearing for the state of Karnataka and as prosecution we had to argue for upholding death penalty given by the High Court (Karnataka). [this post is edited on May 08, 2015 to state that the Apex Court upheld the death penalty in B.A Umesh v Regr. Gen. High Court of Karnataka, AIR 2011 SC 1000].

Post first day and till 26^th Nov 2009 the SC has been normal for me. By now I have worked on two more cases, one dealing with land acquisition and other related to Mines and Minerals Development Regulation Act. Former case was not very difficult and I could manage to work well but the latter one was so bulky that I took almost two days to comprehend just the facts of the case then another one day to understand the law. Anyways ma’am took over that case in between so I need not worry about it anymore as of now. So far the Supreme Court is quite normal.

I am writing this paragraph on 27^th Nov and just a day before, I had no clue that this normalcy in the SC is momentary. A scooter hit me at a bus stop when I was just boarding out of the bus. Though the accident was extremely minor one still I suffered temporary psychological injuries because it was first ever accident of my life. Well, the whole purpose of doing internship in the Supreme Court is to gain experience, be it in any field. Along with my first ever accident, first time during my internship till now I did not have any work overnight.

Its 29^th night and I don’t know when my worklessness is going to end. I had one client interview on Saturday and a small drafting but those were not sufficient to gratify my hunger. Let us hope I will have some difficult work tomorrow.

On Monday and Tuesday I went to the Supreme Court and enjoyed Justice Kataju.

I had to wait till Tuesday i.e. 1^st Dec to get some worthy work. This time again, I was supposed to brief the case before ma’am but unluckily I laid hand on a wrong case and researched whole day on it. It was in the evening only when I was told by Rashmi, (ma’am junior) that this case is not likely to come up for hearing upto next 2 years. Anyways she handed over to me, the right case. Former case (wrong one) dealt with marriage and maintenance. The petitioner was claiming to have married the respondent but there was no substantial evidence brought before the High Court of Jabalpur in order to prove the marriage. Even though the lady claiming to be married managed to show agreement signed in presence of notary public between the petitioner and the respondent stating their willingness to stay together but there was no evidence proving solemnization of the marriage. Lack of solemnization of marriage renders marriage void according to the Hindu Marriage Act. Though I had worked on a wrong case still I got opportunity to learn quite a lot. Apart from learning, this case also becomes important for me, considering the fact that I have family law next semester.

Latter case was related to non payment of incentives to a govt employee after his retirement on the ground that a criminal case for misappropriating funds of the company is sub judice against him. We are yet to receive the SLP and the impugned order of the High Court of Jabalpur therefore I need not research on this case at all as of now. But here comes the most fascinating case dealt by me so far. It was a fascinating case not because it involved some complicated question of law or something serious to be determined. It was fascinating for me because I predicted the fate of the SLP on Thursday and on Friday Justice Altamas Kabir was also in no mood to differ with me. Learned counsel Mr. Sanjay Pareikh managed to get maximum possible relief from the bench except getting the SLP admitted. This case pertained to slum development in Mumbai. It was basically a personal dispute between two netas of a slum locality which was enrolled for rehabilitation. Justice kabir rightly pointed out the correct position of law and dismissed the SLP.

In the meantime while I was working on all the above cases, a new intern joined ma’am but so far she has come only one day to the office . First week of December was not very eventful and that is the reason I am sitting to write this on 10^th December after almost 8 days. This week also I read a number of cases but only with the motive to not get bored in the court while listening to the arguments. I could properly brief ma’am only on two cases in this week. This week was not actually that eventless. One interesting thing happened which requires mentioning. My friends from Hyderabad will be happy to read this. On 9^th December some of my batchmates including myself went to Andhra Bhawan and relished its thali. You do not often find places appreciable if your pocket is light but I was lucky on that day. Best thing about the Bhawan is their delivery time and hospitality amidst 100s of eaters eating together. On 10^th I could just manage to control my temptation of revisiting Andhra Bhawan.

Its 11^th December tonight and I am eagerly waiting for 18^th December to bring end to my internship. One should not be under the impression that I have got bored of my internship. I simply have had enough of the Supreme Court and I want to see my home.

Finally when I am at home I realized that I am yet to write about my last week of internship in the Supreme Court. In fact last week was only confined to one more brief to ma’am and a few drafting. Last brief was again a criminal case dealing with murder and out of two accused, one was acquitted by the High Court of Karnataka and we had to get the conviction representing state. Again I did a little bit of research and predictably justice Shirpukar issued the notice. Anyways after this brief I thought my job is done in Delhi but Rashmi asked me to draft an SLP. Actually I was present at the time when the client was briefing his case to Rashmi. According to various orders of courts below this client was effectively paying Rs 20,000/- pm as maintenance to his wife. He was seeking reduction in the award given under section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act. On the last day I had completed the drafting and gave it to Rashmi who after a lot of correction handed it over to ma’am crediting me for most of the works. Accordingly I had to sit with ma’am to re-correct it, which meant further delays as it was already 7:30 in the evening. Finally after scores of nodding I rose and waved my hands to ma’am, Amit (receptionist), Vinod (clerk) and Rshmi.

Unlike my other batch mates I received nothing as stipend. I don’t even know why I have mentioned about stipend here, which I never looked for. Probably because almost everyone interning got something or the other and therefore I was feeling slightly aggrieved. Anyways, within a span of one month I somehow started to feel a connection with the office and the staffs there. Even with the other intern I had started to gel quite well. Perhaps these were the reasons why I felt sad while walking down to south x. Meetings and partings are the law of nature, a very old saying which always consoles me, rescued me hurriedly this time too. On 18^th afternoon i set off for home, unwillingly looking outside the window of the train.