The Legal Battle for Icecream

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.