10th Professor V.S. Mani Memorial International Law Moot Court Competition – 2024

RULES OF THE COMPETITION

Rule 1: Eligibility for Participation

1. The Competition is open to all students, enrolled bona fide on a regular basis in an undergraduate Law course (5 years integrated Law course/3 Year L.L.B Course) or its equivalent conducted by any recognized Institution/College/University of any country.

2. No Institution/College/University shall enter the Competition with more than one team.

3. A cap of 50 teams is reserved for the Competition, and teams will be selected by first come first serve basis.

4. Each Team shall comprise of a minimum of two members and a maximum of three members. In a Team comprising of two members, both the members shall be designated as Speakers. In a Team comprising of three members, the third member of the team shall be designated as Researcher.

5. Any additional member or team coach of any team shall not formally be recognized and will not be entitled to a certificate from the University.

Rule 2: Language

The language of the Competition shall be English.

Rule 3: Clarifications to the Case

Teams may request for clarifications via e-mail to mootcourt@jnujaipur.ac.in, latest by, 15.02.2024 (11.59 P.M. IST).

Rule 4: Anonymity of Teams

1. Teams shall not reveal their identity in any form, except by means of the Team Code allotted to them during the Competition.

2. The Written Submissions shall not reveal the identity of the team in any form and should not bear the logo, name etc. of the University represented.

3. Any material presented to the Panel should be devoid of any identification marks / seal of the Team. If any such mark / seal exists, it shall be rendered unfair means.

4. Any violation of Rule 4.2 and 4.3 shall attract severe penalty or disqualification as determined by the Moot Court Committee. The decision of the Moot Court Committee in this regard shall be final and not subject to challenge.

Rule 5: Dress Code

1. All Participants (Both Male and Female) shall wear Black Blazer, Black Trouser, White Shirt, Black Shoes with Black Socks and Black Tie.

2. Non-Compliance of Clause (1) will lead to penalty.

Rule 6: Registration of teams

1. Each team shall complete the registration within the stipulated time. The registration is a two-step process comprising of filling up of the registration form and payment of the registration fee as provided in Rule 7.

2. Registration will be open till 28th February, 2024 (11:59 P.M. IST). The registration form can be downloaded from the official website of the University (www.jnujaipur.ac.in).

3. The Teams are required to send a bona-fide letter issued by the appropriate authority of their College or University along with the duly filled registration form.

Rule 7: Registration Fee

1. The Registration Fee is INR 5,000/- Indian teams.

2. All other Teams shall pay US $ 100 or its equivalent excluding service charge (if any) in Euro as registration fee.

3. Payment of Registration Fee:

   (a) Indian Teams must make payment by Online Payment/Demand Draft. The procedure for the same has been provided in the Annexure to the Competition Rules.

   (b) Payment by all other teams must be made by Online Payment/Bank Transfer. The procedure for the same has been provided in the registration form.

   (c) All the formalities concerning the registration process should be completed by 28th February, 2024. The decision of the Director shall be final in this regard.

   (d) Once the Team is registered after completing the formalities, a Team Code shall be assigned to it by 1st March, 2024.

   (e) A Team that has registered pursuant to Rules 1.4 may change its composition only after informing the Moot Court Committee of such change. Any changes with respect to the contact details shall be notified to the Moot Court Committee with immediate effect. This obligation to inform shall continue throughout the course of the Competition.

Rule 8: Written Submission

1. Each Team is required to submit Memorial and Counter Memorial on behalf of both the Applicant and the Respondent respectively.

2. Each Team shall send one (1) soft copy of the written Submission for each side in MS Word Document 2007 or 2010 (.docx) format only, via E-mail, on or before March 7, 2024 to mootcourt@jnujaipur.ac.in. Format for the same is mentioned in Rule 8.7.

3. Each Team shall send one (1) hard copy of each Memorial and Counter Memorial to the Moot Court Committee on or before March 10, 2024 to the address below. Submission beyond this date would be subject to the discretion of the organizers and will be subject to penalty.

   Director,

   Seedling School of Law and Governance,

   Jaipur National University, Main Campus, Jaipur Agra By-pass, Near New RTO Office, Jagatpura, Jaipur Rajasthan-302017

4. Each Team shall carry with them four hard copies of the Memorials for each side [four for the Applicant and four for the Respondent] on their arrival.

5. The hard copies must be the exact print out of the soft copy; else the team will entail disqualification from the competition.

6. The Written Submission and Counter Memorial shall consist of the following mandatory heads:

   (a) Title Page;

   (b) Table of Contents;

   (c) List of Abbreviations;

   (d) Table of Authorities;

   (e) Questions Presented;

   (f) Fact Highlights, which may creatively and persuasively state the facts of the problem in support of the positions argued in the Written Submission. The Statement of Facts should remain faithful to the official facts and present them in a reasonable way, but not a true copy of it.

   (g) Summary of Arguments;

   (h) Argument including footnotes; and

   (i) Final Submissions to the Tribunal.

7. The Written Submission (including the preliminary pages) and soft copy submission shall be typed on A4-sized paper, with the following formatting specifications:

   (a) Font type: Times New Roman

   (b) Font size: 12

   (c) Line spacing: 1.5

   (d) Body of text: Justified

   For Footnotes, the formatting specifications are:

   (a) Font type: Times New Roman

   (b) Font size: 10

   (c) Single spacing

   (d) Paragraph spacing: 0

   (e) No additional space between 2 footnotes

   (f) Body of text: Justified

8. Table of Contents, List of Abbreviations, Table of Authorities, Section Headings and footnotes shall be typed Single-spaced.

9. Teams shall cite authorities in the Memorials using footnotes following Harvard Bluebook 21st Edition.

10. Footnotes should be limited only to citations and must not contain extra information or arguments.

11. The Written Submission shall not contain any annexure, photographs, graphs, diagrams or any other representation of like nature.

12. Memorials should be preferably spiral bound. Comb / staple or any other form of binding will be considered improper. Kindly avoid plastic sheet separators.

13. Memorials shall not in any way identify the Team, its members, the law school, faculty, university or other participating institution except with the Team Code as assigned by the organizers. The electronic version of memorials shall not have any electronic identification of the Team.

14. Following color scheme shall be followed for the cover page of the Written Submission:

    (a) Applicant: BLUE

    (b) Respondent: RED

Rule 9: Oral Pleading

1. Any form of scouting during the completion is strictly prohibited and shall entail instant disqualification of the Team.

2. The proceedings and method of presentation of oral arguments shall be, to the extent possible, in alignment with the procedure adopted by the International Court of Justice.

3. The order in which Teams shall submit their Oral Pleadings throughout the Competition shall be:

   Speaker 1 for Applicant, Speaker 2 for Applicant; Speaker 1 for Respondent, Speaker 2 for Respondent.

4. In case of any Team fails to appear in an oral round, the round shall be conducted ex-parte and the scoring shall be done as if the defaulter team had been present and arguing.

5. Before the start of the oral rounds, each Team shall inform the Court Officer regarding the order of speaking as well as allocation of time between themselves and the time reserved for Rebuttals.

6. If a Speaker speaks for more than the time reserved for him/her, the extra time used by such Speaker shall be deducted from the time allotted to the second Speaker of that team. If the second Speaker exceeds the time allotted to him/her, such time exceeded shall be deducted from the time reserved for Rebuttals.

7. Compendium can be submitted to the Court Officer prior to the oral rounds which will be submitted to the judges at their discretion. Any further material may be passed at the discretion of the Panel. Team members can pass research materials to the speaker in a discreet manner.

8. Any team which violates any of the Rules with respect to the oral rounds may be penalized. The decision of the panel shall be final in this regard.

9. During the oral rounds, Speakers at the podium and participants seated at counsel table shall not operate, for any purpose, Mobile Phones, Laptop Computers, iPad, or any other computer or electronic devices which internet are enabled or has instant messaging capabilities.

10. A Team that violates Rule 9.9 forfeits up to six (6) Oral Round marks. The Moot Court Committee shall determine a penalty that corresponds to the severity of the violation.

11. Preliminary Rounds/Quarter Finals:

(a) Each oral round will be for a period of 60 minutes, (inclusive of Rebuttals), wherein each Team will be allotted 30 minutes including the time for Rebuttals. Any extension of time beyond this specified period is subject to the discretion of the Panel.

(b) No Team shall reserve more than 5 minutes for Rebuttals.

(c) No Researcher of any Team will be permitted to speak but would be allowed to communicate with his/her team member in a discreet manner.

12. Semi Finals

(a) Each oral round will be for a period of 80 minutes, (including Rebuttals), wherein each Team will be allowed 40 minutes. Any extension of time beyond this specified period is subject to the discretion of the Panel.

(b) No Team shall reserve more than 5 minutes for Rebuttals.

13. Finals:

(a) Each oral round will be for a period of 90 minutes, (including Rebuttals), wherein each Team will be allowed 45 minutes. Any extension of time beyond this specified period is subject to the discretion of the Panel.

(b) No Team shall reserve more than 7 minutes for Rebuttals.

Rule 10: Evaluation Criteria for Written Submission

1. The Memorial marks of each Team in the preliminary rounds shall be awarded by a discrete Panel other than the Oral Pleading Sessions Panel.

2. Every Written Submission will be marked on Scale of 100 and will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

   S.No.	Marking Criteria	Maximum Marks Allocated
   1.	Knowledge of fact & Law	20
   2.	Application of Law & Facts	20
   3.	Use of Authority / Precedents	20
   4.	Organization of Arguments and Clarity of Thoughts	20
   5.	Mode of Citation of source	10
   6.	Presentation Style	10
   	TOTAL	100

Rule 11: Evaluation Criteria for Oral Pleading

1. The Oral Pleading Session would be marked on scale of 100 per Panelist and would be evaluated on the following grounds-

   S.No.	Marking Criteria	Maximum Marks Allocated
   1.	Knowledge of Law & Facts (K.L.F)	10
   2.	Use of Facts in Arguments (U.F.A.)	10
   3.	Interpretation of Law and its Application to Facts (I.L.A.F)	20
   4.	Use of Authorities (U.O.A)	10
   5.	Response to Questions (R.Q.)	10
   6.	Organization of Arguments and clarity of thought(O.A.C.T)	20
   7.	Argumentative Skills and Creativity (A.S.C)	10
   8.	Court Mannerisms (C.M.)	10
   	TOTAL	100

2. The decision of the Panel regarding the allocation of marks shall be final. Each panelist shall give his/her score separately. All scores of panelists of a panel shall than be added up and divided by the number of panelist in order to get the final score.

Rule 12: Structure of the Competition

1. The Competition Rounds shall be held over a period of 2 days from 15th and 16th March , 2024. The Memorial Exchange will take place in the afternoon of 14th March, 2024 (for Preliminary Rounds)

2. The Competition shall consist of four (4) Rounds:

   (a) The Preliminary Rounds;

   (b) The Quarter Finals;

   (c) The Semi Finals; and

   (d) The Final

3. Preliminary Rounds:

(a) In the Preliminary rounds, each Team shall argue once as Applicant and once as Respondent. The Team which argues for the Applicant in the first Preliminary Round shall argue for the Respondent in the second Preliminary Round, and vice-versa.

(b) At the end of both preliminary rounds, the top eight teams will qualify for the quarter finals on the basis of their wins in both Preliminary rounds.

(c) A team shall be credited with a win if its total marks in the respective session are higher than its opponent team. The total scores for the preliminary rounds shall be out of 200.

(d) In case of a tie, the marks of the memorials will be considered in addition to the scores of preliminary rounds. The team with the higher score will advance to the Quarter Finals.

(e) The Teams are required to return the hard copy of their opponent’s Written Submission to the Moot Officers soon after the Oral Rounds.

4. Quarter Finals:

(a) The quarter finals will be knock-out rounds. A Team will be credited with a win in the quarter finals if their total marks, are higher than its opponent’s Teams.

(b) In case of a tie, the total oral marks of the Teams in the previous round(s) will be considered. The Team with the higher score will win.

(c) If the situation of tie still persists, then it would be resolved through the toss of coin.

(d) The Teams are required to return the hard copy of their opponent’s Written Submission to the Moot Officers soon after the Oral Rounds.

5. Semi Finals:

(a) The semi-finals will again be knock-out rounds. A Team will be credited with a win in the Semi-finals if their total marks, are higher than its opponent’s Teams.

(b) In case of a tie, the total oral marks of the Teams in the previous round(s) will be considered. The Team with the higher score will win.

(c) If the situation of tie still persists, then it would be resolved through the toss of coin.

(d) The Teams are required to return the hard copy of their opponent’s Written Submission to the Moot Officers soon after the Oral Rounds.

6. Final:

Winner of the Final will be decided on the basis of Oral Arguments only.

Rule 13: Reporting of Results

1. Cumulative Memorial Score of each team will be notified to them after the finals.

2. A Copy of Oral Score-sheet of the Preliminary, Quarterfinal, Semi-final and Final Rounds will be notified soon after the end of respective rounds.

Rule 14: Awards

1. The Winning Team shall be awarded a Trophy and a cash prize of 30000/- INR.

2. The Runner-ups Team shall be awarded a cash prize of 20000/- INR.

3. The Best Written Submission award carries a Plaque and cash prize of 7000/- INR.

4. The Best Speaker shall be awarded a Plaque and a cash prize of 6000/- INR.

5. The Best Researcher shall be awarded a Plaque and a cash prize of 5000/- INR.

Note: The Prize Money can be increased depending upon the sponsorship.

Rule 15: Interpretation of Rules

The MOOT COURT COMMITTEE shall serve as final arbiter of implementation and interpretation of these Rules.

Rule 16: Complaint procedure

1. If a Team believes that violation of the Competition Rules has taken place at any stage of the Competition, the Team(s) within half an hour after the completion of the round in which violation has allegedly occurred should register a complaint in writing with the Director. Team(s) under no circumstances shall approach the Panel with any complaints.

2. Teams may approach to Moot Court Committee for redressal of their complaint which shall be in writing. Complaint shall clearly describe the violation and the parties involved in the violation. The Team shall not directly approach the judges regarding a violation of these Rules.

3. Moot Court Committee will have a final say on the Complaints made by a Team.

Rule 17: Penalties

1. Penalty points may be deducted only by the Director. In no instance shall judges themselves deduct from the scores of the Speakers any Penalty points. Judges shall score the Oral Rounds as if no violation occurred.

2. Any Memorials violating any of the specified rules mentioned under Article 10 will be penalized according to the following scheme:

   S.No.	Scheme of Deduction	Marks Deducted
   1.	Non-Compliance with Rule 5.2 (Dress Code)	2 Marks
   2.	Non-Compliance with Rule 8.2 (Written submission of soft copy)	2 Marks
   3.	Non-Compliance with Rule 8.6 (Presentation of Written Submission)	3 Marks
   4.	Non-Compliance with Rule 8.7 (Formatting of Written Submission)	3 Marks
   5.	Non-Compliance with Rule 8.8 (Table of Contents, List of Abbreviations, Table of Authorities etc.)	1 Marks
   6.	Non-Compliance with Rule 8.9 (Uniform mode of Citation)	2 Marks
   7.	Non-Compliance with Rule 8.12 (Staple Bound)	4 Marks
   8.	Non-Compliance with Rule 8.12 (Reveal of identification of teams)	3 Marks

Rule 18: Miscellaneous

1. Accommodation shall be provided only to the participants during the days of the Competition. Teams who intend to arrive prior to or leave after the specified dates may be provided accommodation subject to availability and upon payment of requisite charges.

2. The Moot Court Committee reserves the right to modify any of the Competition Rules at any point of time. The Director shall communicate any changes made in the Competition Rules to the Teams.

3. The Moot Court Committee reserves the right to take decisions on any matter not mentioned in the Competition Rules. Any such decision taken by the Director shall be final and binding.

4. The Moot Court Committee reserves the right to interpret any of the Competition Rules. Such interpretation shall be final and binding. Communication at the counsel table between Team Members may only be in writing to prevent disruption. Teams and team-affiliated spectators shall avoid all unnecessary noise, outbursts, or other inappropriate behavior which distracts from the argument in progress.

Contact details for Moot Court Competition:

Feel free to contact

E-mail: mootcourt@jnujaipur.ac.in

Faculty and Student Core Committee:

Faculty Convener: Mr. Amar Anshul

Mob: +91-7838393814

Faculty Co-Convener: Mr. Keshav Gaur

Mob: +91-8094520659

To know more click on MOOT PROBLEM VSMMILMCC’24 and Website post