3rd NATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION 2023

4th & 5th August, 2023

THEME: FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION

SCHOOL OF LEGAL SCIENCE

TECHNO INDIA UNIVERSITY WEST BENGAL

2nd Floor EM-4, Sector-V, Salt Lake, Kolkata - 700091

 MOOT PROPOSITION

Industan, officially the Republic of Industan, is a country in South Asmania. It is the largest
democracy in the world, known for its powerful government, pervasive surveillance and
stringent policies. It is a developing country where freedom of speech and expression is
guaranteed as a fundamental right under the Constitution of Industan.

On 20th December, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) detected a series of
Pneumonia cases of unknown etiology in the city of Chiang, in the country of Changu. The
causative virus had been renamed by WHO as SARS-Cov-2 and the disease caused by it as
COVID-19. Soon it spread across the globe. The first case of Covid-19 in Industan, which
originated from Chiang, was reported on 25 January 2021. On 14 February, 2021, Industan
observed a 14-hour voluntary public curfew at the instance of Mr. Varuno Space, the Prime
Minister. From 20th February, 2021, a nation-wide lockdown was declared by him for two
weeks. The lockdown kept extending every two weeks as the nation kept grappling with the
widespread virus. This lockdown adversely affected the entire population of Industan in terms
of commerce, education, economy, transport, migrant labour, unemployment, medical services
and food securities. The condition of medical facilities to adapt to the wide-spreading virus was
going from bad to worse.

Mr. Vinay Sethi, a well-known journalist of Industan, has been reigning in the field of
journalism for the past 2 decades. On 30th April 2021, in his show namely The Vinay Sethi
Show on MyTube, he had spoken about the nation-wide lockdown and the critical health issues
caused by Covid-19. He had also commented on the government’s lack of sufficient facilities
for testing. Further, he spoke about the lack of sufficient information on the availability of
materials like PPE kits, N95 masks, etc. Another issue that he spoke about was the major labour
migration issue that Industan was facing at that time. He had made unfounded and bizarre
allegations in the following timings in the MyTube video:

• At 6 minutes and 28 seconds of the video, he had stated that Mr. Varuno Space has
used death and terror attacks to garner votes.
• At 6 minutes and 51 seconds of the video he has stated that the government lacks
enough testing facilities and has made false claims about the availability of the
medical equipment like Personal Protective Kits (PPE) and claims that there is no
sufficient information on those.
The comments of Mr. Vinay Sethi spread dissatisfaction among the public. A large mass of the
population of Industan was showing discontent and claimed that the comments made by Vinay
Sethi is capable of leading to violence against the Prime Minister. The public criticized the
comments of Mr. Vinay Sethi widely. He was accused of casting aspersions on the integrity of
the Prime Minister, inciting violence and anti-national sentiments.

Industan Ruling Party is the largest political party of Industan. Mr. Naruto from Industan
Ruling Party residing at Jumlanagar lodged an FIR vide Pampapur P.S case no. 2521/21 under
Sections 124A, 268, 501, 505 of Industan Penal Code. It was alleged that he was spreading
false and malicious news relating to the Prime Minister of Industan and that is inciting violence
amongst the citizens and disturbing the tranquility of the public.

In view of this, Mr. Vinay Sethi preferred a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution
of Industan before the Supreme Court of Industan praying for the following:

1) Quash FIR No. 2521/21 registered as P.S Pampapur in Jumlanagar;

2) Section 124A of Industan Penal Code to be declared unconstitutional.

The following were the issues to be decided by the Supreme Court of Industan:

1) Whether Section 124A of Industan Penal Code infringes the fundamental right of
freedom of speech and expression enshrined under Article 19(1)(a) of the Industan
Constitution?
2) Whether a harsh criticism of the Government amount to an act that undermines the
security of the State or a disruption of public order to fall under Section 124A?
3) Whether Section 124A of Industan Penal Code infringes the fundamental right to life
and dignity enshrined under Article 21 of the Industan Constitution?

Note:

A. Only the laws of Industan are pari materia to the laws of the Republic of India and no
such fact is pari materia to any country.
B. This Moot Proposition is purely a work of fiction and resemblance to any such
incidence shall be purely co-incidental.
C. This Moot Proposition is purely intended for the Moot Court Competition and
educational purpose amongst law students.
D. The participants are required to prepare their submissions from each side of the case.
They are free to add issues and if required, sub-issues.
 RULES AND REGULATIONS

Important rules and regulation for the competition are mentioned below:

The Core Committee of the TIU Moot Court Competition will have exclusive authority to
interpret the rules in the interest of just and fair competition.

DEFINITIONS

The definitions placed below by the Moot Court Committee shall be final and the decision of
the Moot Court Committee regarding the applicability of these rules will be final.

1) ‘Bench’ refers to the members duly invited by the organizing committee, to adjudge any of
the rounds, collectively. Bench may be a bench of any number of judges as the Organizing
committee may decide.

2) ‘Clarifications’ means any questions, queries, or doubts sent by the registered teams to the
organisers, within the given deadline.

3) ‘Penalty’ refers to the deductions-imposed scores of a participating team for violation of

rules of the competition.

4) ‘Participating Team’ means the team which has registered itself for the competition within
the time limit prescribed as per the rules for registration.

5) ‘Rejoinder’ refers to those arguments /questions that the Complainant may raise at the end
of the main pleadings of all the Speakers.

6) ‘Sur-Rejoinder’ refers to the defence presented by the Respondent to the Rejoinder.

Allowing Sur-Rejoinder shall strictly be upon discretion of the judges.

7) ‘Court Room’ shall refer to the online platform where the orals will take place.

8) ‘Scouting’ means a person observing the Oral Rounds of a team other than the team such
person is associated with.

ELIGIBILITY AND PARTICIPATION

 • The competition is open to all students pursuing full time Undergraduate Law Course
provided by a recognized institution/university/college in India.
• Each team shall consist of minimum 2 members or maximum of three members (2
speakers or 2 speakers and 1 researcher), respectively.
• Teams shall be chosen on first come first serve basis.

REGISTRATION PROCEDURE

a) Apply online at technoindiauniversity.ac.in or send mail at

mootcourt@technoindiauniversity.ac.in by 16th July, 2023 with the subject
‘Registration for Moot Court Competition’. A confirmation message will be sent to the
applicants.
b) After getting confirmation from our side, a participation fee is to be deposited into the
said bank and the scanned challan copy is to be sent at
registrationfees@technoindiauniversity.ac.in.
c) A final confirmation will be sent to the applicants.
d) A soft copy of the Memorial is to be submitted within or by 30th of July, 2023 at
mootcourt@technoindiauniversity.ac.in .

FEE DETAILS

a) Early bird offer charges no registration fee for the first 5 teams
b) The next 10 teams are to be charged a nominal fee of Rs. 1000.
c) The rest of the participating teams are to be charged Rs. 1500 for the registration.

DRESS CODE

The participating teams must adhere to the following dress code during the competition. Male-
Western formals, i.e., white shirt, black trousers, tie and black coat/blazer. Female- Indian
formals, i.e., white sari or salwar-kurta, or Western formals, i.e., white shirt, black trousers/skirt
and Black coat/blazer
LANGUAGE

The official language of the competition shall be English only.

CORRECTION & CLARIFICATIONS

The teams may request for correction and clarification regarding the moot proposition within
18th July, 2022. Such requests shall be sent by email at
mootcourt@technoindiauniversity.ac.in only. No other mode of communication will be taken
into consideration.

MEMORIAL SUBMISSION

• All memorials submitted for all purposes of the Competition shall firmly comply with the
rules of the competition. Each participating team must prepare two written submissions,
one for each Petitioner/Appellant as well as Respondent/Defendant side.
• Petitioner/Appellant memorials are required to have a Blue cover and Respondent/
Defendant(s) memorials are required to have Red cover. Only soft copies of memorials
shall be submitted in both .pdf and .doc/.docx format latest by 30th of July, 2023.
• “Team codes” will be provided after the completion of your final registration.
• Each Team shall carry with them 5 hard copies of the memorial for the purpose of the
competition (exclusive of copies required for personal use by the team). Each team shall
submit the hard copies on the day of the competition itself, i.e. 3rd August, 2023.

MEMORIAL CONTENT

• Cover Page – The cover page shall contain the Case Title, Side of the Memorial, Year of
the Competition, Name of the Court, and Team Code on the top right corner.
• Table of Contents
• Index of Authorities
• Statement of Jurisdiction
• Statement of Facts
• Issues Raised
• Summary of Arguments Pleadings
 • Arguments Advanced
• Prayer
• The Memorial shall not exceed 35 Pages in total and Arguments Advanced shall not
exceed 20 Pages.

FORMAT OF THE MEMORIAL

The memorial shall be typed on an A4 size paper and all the pages of the memorial should have
a page number at the bottom.

• The Font shall be in Times New Roman, Size 12 pts with Line Spacing of 1.5
• Footnotes shall be in Font Times New Roman, Size 10 pts with Line Spacing of 1.0
• Page Margins shall be an inch on all sides.
• All the citations and footnotes must be consistent and in compliance with the 20th Edition
of Bluebook.
• Any revision to the memorial after submission shall attract penalties.

MEMORIAL MARKING CRITERIA The following shall be the judging criteria for the
memorial-

Sr. No. Marking Criteria Marks Allotted

1. Depth and Quality of Research 25
2. Knowledge of facts and laws 20
3. Proper and Articulate Analysis, Clarity of thought and 20
Organization
4. Grammar Style 10
5. Citation of sources 10
6. Presentation and Organization 15
Total 100

** The marks allotted by the judges to the teams shall be final. All the judges will be
provided with a marking guideline.
PENALTIES

• Late submission of memorial will entail deduction of 2 marks per day per
memorandum.
• Any violation of rules for submission of memorandum will entail deduction of 1 mark
per violation.
• Changes made to the hard copies after submission of soft copy shall entail a point
deduction of 2 marks per word/sentence.

ORAL ROUNDS

The match-up of teams in all the rounds shall be decided on the basis of the draw of lots.
The competition shall consist of the following rounds –

PRELIMINARY ROUNDS-

1. There will be one Preliminary Round.

2. Each team shall be given a maximum of 20 minutes to present their arguments. This
shall be inclusive of the time for rebuttal. The maximum time for rebuttal is 2 minutes.
3. The organisers shall have its own time-keepers, wherein there shall be two warning
bells. The first bell shall be rung 7 minutes before the time run out and the second bell
shall be rung 2 minutes before the time run out. The third bell shall connote that the
time is up.
4. A team will secure its win in the Preliminary Round if their Round total is greater than
that of opponent team
5. In case of a tie, the winner of the round will be the team with a higher Memorial Score.

SEMI FINAL ROUNDS-

1. Four teams shall advance to the Semi Final Rounds. These teams will be chosen
according to draw of lots.
2. The maximum time for arguments for each team shall be 30 minutes, of which no
speaker shall be allowed to speak for more than 25 minutes. The maximum time for
rebuttal is 3 minutes and for sur-rebuttal is 2 minutes.
3. Sur-rebuttal shall be at the discretion of the judges.
4. The organisers shall have its own time-keepers, wherein there shall be two warning
bells. The first bell shall be rung 7 minutes before the time run out and the second bell
 shall be rung 2 minutes before the time run out. The third bell shall connote that the
time is up.
5. A team shall be credited with a win in Semi Final Rounds if their round total is greater
than the opponent team.

FINAL ROUNDS –

1. Two teams shall advance to the Finals on knockout basis.

2. A team shall be credited with a win in Final Rounds if their round total is greater than
the opponent team.
3. The maximum time for arguments for each team shall be 40 minutes, of which no
speaker shall be allowed to speak for more than 25 minutes. The maximum time for
rebuttal is 3 minutes and for sur rebuttal is 2 minutes.
4. Sur-rebuttal shall be at the discretion of the judges.
5. The organisers shall have its own time-keepers, wherein there shall be two warning
bells. The first bell shall be rung 7 minutes before the time run out and the second bell
shall be rung 2 minutes before the time run out. The third bell shall connote that the
time is up.

ORAL ROUND MARKING CRITERIA

Each Team will be marked on a total of 100 marks by each Bench Judge

The total marks for the Round will be the aggregate of the total of two (2) speakers.

The computation of the Marks and the Marking criteria shall be as follows-

Sr. No Marking Criteria Marks Allocated

1. Knowledge and Application of Relevant Law 20
2. Interpretation and use of Facts 20
3. Ability to answer questions 10
4. Overall Presentation, Poise, Courtesy and Demeanour 15
5. Organisation and Flow of Arguments 15
6. Clarity, logic and structure of Presentation 20
Total 100
 **The marks allotted by the judges to any team shall be final. All the judges will be
provided with a marking guideline.

CALCULATION OF MARKS

The total will be calculated on a combined score of oral round and marks of memorial i.e
Marks obtained in Oral Round + Marks obtained in Memorial

GENERAL CODE OF CONDUCT

• The competition shall be conducted offline at the Venue, EM-4, EM Block, Sector V,
Bidhannagar, Kolkata, West Bengal 700091
• The teams must ensure that they reach on time for all the rounds and should carry their
School/College/ University ID cards.
• The participants must ensure that they need to maintain the decorum of the University
and the Court room.
• Entering/indulging in any kind of misconduct, or violating the aforementioned rules
and regulations Shall lead to immediate disqualification.
• In case of tie in any round, the team scoring higher marks in memorial shall be adjudged
winner.
• The decision of the judges with regards to the oral rounds shall be final.

ANONYMITY OF TEAMS

• Teams shall not reveal their identity in any form, except by means of the Team Code
allotted to them during the Competition.
• 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.
• Any violation of the above rules shall attract severe penalty or disqualification as
determined by the organising committee.
• The decision of the Moot Court committee in this regard shall be final and binding on
the participating team.
SCOUTING

Scouting is strictly prohibited. Scouting by any team shall entail instant disqualification.

ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE

Techno India University, Salt Lake, Kolkata, EM-4, EM Block, Sector V, Bidhannagar,
Kolkata, West Bengal 700091

FOR FURTHER QUERIES YOU CAN CONTACT THE

FOLLOWING:
Student Committee:

Faculty Co-ordinator:
Kuldeep Bairwa - 9079693927.

Email ID -mootcourt@technoindiauniversity.ac.in