For the third Full House Activity of the year, held on Thursday, 9th of August 2018, Army Institute of Law organized an enlightening Demo Moot to show the nuances of the art of mooting to the newest members of the AIL Family – The first year. The objective of a Demo Moot session, which is held annually, is to groom the freshers for the Annual Novices Moot Court Competition. It acts as the novices’ first window to the world of legal proceedings and the practice of law.
Mooting is known as an art as it amalgamates both – the persuasive power of public speaking with specialized application of legal knowledge. However, it does not merely test these two areas, but even the participants’ reasoning skills, moral stances and the capability to leave their biases behind before stepping up the dais.
The Demo Moot involved a proposition based on the Law of Contracts, wherein the facts of the case spoke about the contract between an employer and an employee. A dentist Dr. Rekha, working in New Chandigarh offered an employment opportunity to Dr. Rizu as a junior dentist at her dental hospital for three years, on the condition that in the event of termination or before completion of the term of contract Dr. Rizu shall not practice in the Tricity Area. However, after three months in the job, the employee was dismissed without any reason and twelve months post that, she began her own private practice in Mohali Sector 68. Thus, the Dr. Rekha decides to file a suit against Dr. Rizu.
The counsels of the plaintiff and defendant comprised of Ms. Ananya Sharma and Ms. Tanushri Tanwar from the 4th year, respectively. The session was judged by our esteemed professors – Dr. Bajirao Rajwade, Dr. Kulpreet Kaur and Deepinder Kaur ma’am who made a point to question both parties not only on their legal knowledge, but their fundamental understanding of the proposition as well as the loopholes in arguments put forth. Shweta Nair and Manureet Singh from the Second year acted as the Court Clerks for the event.
This week’s Thursday Activity proved to be a great success with very convincing contentions put forward by both counsels, (peppered with occasional witty remarks from Bajirao Sir) which compelled the audience to listen with rapt attention for the entirety of the event. On a lighter note, perhaps this was the first time where the freshers were actually competing for the front row seats to witness a Thursday activity!
This write-up was prepared by Radhika Varma (1st year).
