It's
been a long time, right? Well I needed some serious issue to get me back here,
away from my exams and internship
and more importantly, out of my warm blanket.
The
other day, I attended an International Conference. It was in an amazing huge
hall, great place. I was VERY impressed.
And
then, the Programme started. The Inauguration session went on forever, spilling
into the time slot set for the Sessions. The Garland-putting, Hand-shaking,
Speech-giving and felicitating seemed to go on and on and on.
More
confusion was created when, finally done with the inauguration, we were told to
proceed for lunch, which wasn't the plan. I went to the lunch area and saw
everyone getting ready to pounce on the food, only to be disappointed by one of
the organizers telling them that the announcement was wrong.
Finally,
the Working Sessions started.
The
first one was related to Human Rights and Terrorism. Sure, great topic. I
eagerly waited for the promised Foreign Delegates to speak and present their
point of view. Three hours of obvious-fact-stating ("we must combat the
evil of terrorism", "Rights of people are being affected",
"This is a great conference and I am very grateful to be here"
"blah blah blah"), I gave up hope. There was NOTHING substantial in
ANY of the speeches. The lowest point of the session was when a Senior Advocate
of the Supreme Court, snoring loudly beside me, woke up in the middle of the
speech of one of the speakers, and said, "What is wrong with you people?
Its 2.30! We want to have lunch man!" That did it for me. I walked out.
(The
next session, was thankfully, a much productive one, on Intellectual Property
Rights. It even got me thinking about taking up IPR as my Honors course.)
The
next day, I was to present my own paper. When I reached the venue, the session
was on. The topic was "Freedom of Press". I sat down, skeptical about
the quality of the session. The Majority of the session was dominated by one
advocate, who clearly loved his own voice. I wouldn't have minded, had he
spoken ANYTHING connected to the issue at hand. My blood was boiling. I almost
threw a shoe at him when, making a foreign delegate wait for 10 minutes, he
introduced some random guy, and proceeded to congratulate him for some post he
got. He did not stop at that. He proceeded to have a discussion on some caste
getting into power, for the next 15 minutes. The foreign delegate, poor chap,
was politely nodding his head and smiling, assuming they are talking about
Freedom of Press.
The
Lowest Point of the whole conference was the Lunch. While students stood
politely in line, awaiting their turn, Senior Advocates and Judges and other
"dignitaries" literally elbowed their way to the ice-cream station.
One could mistake the table where ice cream was being served, as a place where
maybe free gold was being distributed. And when the plates got over, the
indignant looks on their faces brought my blood to boil.
I
threw my spoon back on the table and walked away.
Talking
like a layman in a conference meant for in-depth discussion of a serious legal
matter, Fighting for Mango Ice-cream, Talking about Caste Politics (not the ill
effects of it, but in fact PROMOTING and ENCOURAGING it), Careless accusations
and calling a certain country a "terrorist country"... If THIS is the
quality of our Senior Advocates and Judges, it does not surprise me one bit
that our courts and our cases are in such a pathetic state.
My
post is not meant to degrade the said conference, or to, in any way, degrade
our justice system. I am merely stating facts. In fact, my post is one of the
many trying to get people to realize that we need to uphold the
dignity and sanctity of the courts and of the profession as a whole. My post is
to show MY realization and observations regarding the low intellect
regarding real legal issues, in our legal fraternity, and the dire need for a
sense of dignity and sophistication that our Lawyers, Judges, Law Experts and
others in this field, need, for the sake of the judiciary and the respect it
deserves.
