Reform of the Legal Profession

In this article published on myLaw.net, I argue that mere reforms in the legal education in India do not mean much unless they are accompanied by concomitant reform of the legal profession, inter alia, through enforcement of ethical rules of practice. This article provides another perspective in trying to understand why the top law schools have not been able to motivate its law graduates to join litigation.

Service Tax on Lawyers - What is the State taxing?

In this piece, I argue that imposition of service tax on representational service and on arbitral tribunals may not have necessary degree of coherence with rule of law and forward policy. 

Anna's fight against 'Corruption' - What it means?

Professedly, Anna's 'movement' (I intend to analyse at a later stage whether the stir qualifies as a movement, or it was merely a 'mass protest'), and support lent to him by the opposition was against 'corruption'. I am not aware if any participant in the movement, either from the civil society or from ‘Team Anna’ has attempted to define ‘corruption’.  This concern has been expressed in an EPW editorial.

The definition of ‘corruption’ is rather important, because it would determine how inclusive the support from the demos of India would be. Having said this, I do not mean to undermine the importance of economic corruption. We really need to ensure is that there is no corruption in terms of restrictions to access to opportunity. This access to opportunity can be impeded also by demand of money; but that is not the only way. Therefore, the word ‘corruption’ has to have a broader and more inclusive definition including denial of rights and impeding access to opportunity either for personal gain or for furtherance of a personal agenda or political views. Such an approach is sine qua non because anything else would leave the pot only half filled that too with leakages.

The above approach is to deal with the situation of systematic denial of rights by plugging in the systemic deficiencies. A situation of the nature highlighted by Sachar Committee Report is what I am trying to cover in the definition of ‘corruption’.  For example, when the people in charge of affairs of government abuse their position not for their personal financial gains (but for other reasons) and keep a rightful candidate out of the (participative) government (because of religion, race, caste or kinship), they should be held accountable.  

The conversation between a father and his son in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is instructive on this point: “There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that?When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?”. This analogy can be extended to ‘corruption’ as well.

In this sense, the proposal under the Draft Communal Violence Bill (also see comments here) to criminalize dereliction of duty by state machinery during communal violence which is also based on some evidence is an attempt to remedy one species of the genus that is ‘corruption’.