Running Around

You realize you have been converted into a runner when the first thing you pack when you are traveling abroad, are your running shoes and clothes. 

On a recent conference trip to Florence last week I packed my running gear and promised myself that I would run by the beautiful Ponte Vecchio. Sure enough on my last day, I woke up bright and early on a Sunday morning and started out at 6.30 am blindly through the streets of central Florence. My beautiful run showed me a side of the city that I did not expect. I saw the underbelly of beautiful, picturesque Florence that Sunday early morning - the beer bottles strewn on the central streets from the previous night’s excesses, Bangladeshi souvenir street vendors were already setting up their stalls outside the Duomo, the homeless were on the streets eating food they had managed to lay their hands on and young boys on the street still drunk from the previous night. This is not the beautiful Firenze that the guide books tell you about. 

My morning run gave me access to the heart of the city - it showed me how under the guise of a picturesque tourist destination, Florence was a city like any other and struggling with own share of problems, of poverty and homelessness and  immigrants eking out a living. It was a city where I saw its residents hard at work. Local municipality employees cleaning up the city before people were out on the streets, young cafe staff preparing for the breakfast customers they were expecting in a couple of hours, and roadside vendors putting up their wares. I also saw other runners, and we nodded and acknowledged each other as we passed. I saw a bride and her bridesmaids, in complete finery, with her photographer trying to catch the perfect ray of sun light for a pre-wedding shoot over the Ponte Vecchio. Florence seemed so much more real that Sunday morning.

Women in the Supreme Court

I have just returned from a wonderful experience of arguing before a constitutional bench in the Supreme Court! Without doubt, it was one of my most exciting, nerve-racking and exhilarating experiences. This was in the recent challenge to the Right to Education Act where several private school managements had challenged the amendments to the constitution under Article 15 (5) and 21(A) as being violative of the basic structure of the constitution.

My first thought was, 'whoa!' Am i going to take on basic structure arguments? I hadn't even read Keshavananda, Minerva Mills, Indira Gandhi v. Raj Narrain completely in college.  We filed our intervention application with great confidence and started attending the hearings. It was a great bench, with at least 3 out of the 5 judges being extremely active and opinionated, constantly attacking counsels with questions. It was fabulous. I totally loved being in the court taking notes and nodding my head vigorously in agreement every once in a while, usually when one of the judges made an astute observation. The who's who of the senior counsels appeared in the case, both for the petitioners and for the government, which was defending the constitutional amendments.

As the hearing was nearing closure, my confidence slowly started to wane. All the bigwigs had argued  - Rajeev Dhavan, Mukul Rohatgi, Rohinton Nariman, Anil Divan, Mohan Parasaran, Andhyarujina, Arvind Datar and K.V. Vishwanathan, and as I feebly stood up and mentioned to the Bench that I appear for an intervenor and would like to make some submissions, I was quickly shot down by a judge that there may not be time for an intervenor to make any submissions! It was a nervous two hours for me before the day ended, as I was unsure if I would get an opportunity to argue,  if I would be allowed to argue, whether I would make any decent submissions and if I had indeed taken he right decision to go ahead myself and not advise my client to take a well-known senior counsel.

The clock struck 4 pm and my turn did not arrive. But as I went back to our hotel that evening, I made up my mind that having come this far, I was not going to go back without fighting for my turn. I had spent several days in Delhi, and the hearings brought back sharply my memories of my first year of practice in the Supreme Court. The absolute hierarchy in the courts of senior counsels and lowly juniors. And of course the junior women lawyers - the ones who would invariably be asked by male senior counsels to get up and give up their seat as a matter of right. Will I, a junior lawyer, a woman, a non-Delhi-ite, even stand a chance? While I was nervous, I was also determined to not let go without having an opportunity at making my arguments, something that me and my entire team and worked so hard at preparing. So I hit the books once again all evening, night and early morning till I was mumbling the phrases of Justice Mathew,  J. Chandrachud and Justice Bhagwati's judgements in my sleep. Woke up next morning and put on my secret weapon - electric blue eye-liner to put me into battle mode (it always works!) and set off for the court.

In court, I occupied a seat right in the front row. Surprisingly this time no one asked me to get up or even move! I waited for one of the senior counsels who was continuing his arguments from the previous day, to finish.  As soon as he was done, I took the stand. The judges reluctantly agreed to hear me. As I started by handing over my written submissions and arguing my case, I really took off getting totally into my zone.  The bench was initially surprised as to who this woman was, who dared to venture into issues about the basic features of the constitution and horizontal application of rights - but they warmed up quickly and started asking questions, and I could see some of the other senior counsels by my side nodding their heads in agreement. I had my day and said all that I wanted to and made a serious impact.

While we anxiously wait for the judgement, there is immense satisfaction that me and my team did something in March 2013 in the supreme court before a constitutional bench, what some people might say is unheard of - we were a team of 5 out of which 4 were women, all under the age of 40 (barring me, the rest under the age of 30), non-supreme court lawyers, non-senior counsels, the only woman arguing competently a serious constitutional challenge, in a court room of male judges and only male senior counsels arguing. Yes, you can bring about social change in the Supreme Court.

Why Don't Lawyers Run?

I just finished running the World TCS 10k run in Bangalore. It was a fantastic run with more than 10,000 people participating and as I was running past our beautiful high court building and grounds I started thinking to myself - why don't lawyers run?

Let me rephrase this - why don't Bangalore lawyers run? Of course, you do have a few stray lawyers running regularly in Bangalore but running has not really taken off in the legal community the way it has become a big sport with the techies for example. Running the TCS run both this year and last year and running for most of last year made me realise what a wonderful and free sport running is. I was never a runner, having never run before, having never played any sport before and actually was even averse to sport! But I got introduced to Runners High, a fantastic runners group in Bangalore which showed me that anyone can run if they want to.

Running is one of the most inclusive and equalising activities I know. Which makes it particularly important for the legal community. The legal community is so obsessed with maintaining hierarchy - senior lawyers do not socialise with junior lawyers, high court judges do not sit with district court judges and men and women from the Bar rarely hang out together. You do not see  lawyers and judges interacting socially with paralegal staff, clerks, stenos, court officers, interns and students. Atleast the legal community in India does not know how to interact with each other in any other way and we reproduce the same oppressive hierarchies in our practice.Sport is a great way to break such hierarchies and barriers. Sometime ago, the Delhi and Bangalore law firms started inter-law firm cricket matches. This was followed by the a Football tournament in Bangalore for law firms. Are they inclusive? Of course not. They are largely men's teams, with very few token women participating, if at all. They are only open to lawyers working in large law firms, leaving out the whole sections of individual practitioners, litigators, civil society lawyers, staff and judges. And of course they would leave out all those who are not sporty enough or who do not know how to play football and cricket.  Senior Counsels and Judges are called to inaugurate the event and for giving away prizes, never participating themselves.

Running does not have any of these barriers. You do not need any expertise to run. If there was a law run which had men, women, senior citizens, children, people with disabilities, lawyers, judges, civil society lawyers, court staff, students, interns and clerks participating, I am sure it would not only be a great day out in the park, but would also change the stodgy and conservative way our profession is practised. Running is an equaliser, like no other sport. After yesterday's  run, random people came up and spoke to me about their run, and we chatted about the route, our timing etc. It was so exhilarating to be able to share one's triumphs and pains with a fellow runner who understands them and as Murakami put it so beautifully in his piece in the New Yorker, that there's a feeling of solidarity and unity that carries you all the way to the finish line! 


 And finally, running is a great way to de-stress! It's such a great way to forget about pestering clients, bad days in court and missed interim order opportunities. Nothing offers fresh perspective than a run in the park and It also increases productivity!We need something that brings about this feeling of true solidarity and unity, and what better way then a law run?

Senior Counsels - Where are all the Women?

The Hindu carried an interesting piece by Meena Menon last week titled 'Women as Senior Advocates, Any Takers?'. It discussed mainly the low numbers of women lawyers designated as 'Senior Counsels' in the Bombay High Court. The article stated that there were only 3 women appointed as senior counsels in Bombay between 1991 to 2001, which is shocking. This year in Bombay, there were 15 designated senior counsels and there was not a single woman amongst them. This was despite the fact there was one woman who applied, but was not selected. The situation in Karnataka is not that different, in fact it is much worse. The ONLY woman senior counsel in the Karnataka High Court presently is Pramila Nesargi. To my knowledge, there is no other woman senior counsel appointed in Karnataka or atleast no other senior counsel who is seen to be practicing in the Karnataka High Court.

Why do we have such few women senior counsels in India? The concept of 'senior counsels' has been borrowed from the 'queen's counsel' concept in the UK. The Advocates Act 1961 refers to the class of senior counsels and it essentially signifies a person who has been designated such because of his / her expertise. The person who wishes to be designated as a senior counsel must have atleast 10 years of practice and must make an application to the High Court or Supreme Court to be considered for designation.

The first barrier to designation is really this requirement of making an application to the court to consider you as a senior counsel. This requirement deters many lawyers, both male and female, from being designated as the general feeling in the bar is that the designation of a senior counsel should not require an application and should be given by the court on its own, in recognition of the counsel’s merit. Given this reluctance to apply, with women lawyers, the reluctance is even more. There is a stronger sense of reluctance for women to apply for senior counsel designation, because the selection is to be done by the judges of that court which are mostly male (the Karnataka High Court has only 2 women judges out of a total strength of around 44), there are not enough women senior counsels around for women lawyers to believe that they would have a chance of being selected and the criteria for selection are not known. With all these odds against you, few women would be brave enough to apply in the first place.

Thus, the first hurdle is getting more women lawyers who are really good to even apply. In order to encourage them to apply for being designated as a senior counsel, there needs to be an institutional design in promoting the appointment of women senior counsels by the courts. This is being done in the UK and Australia where more and more women are being appointed as queen’s counsel. The number of women being appointed are still nowhere equal to the number of men, but there the difference is that there is a concerted effort on the part of the judges to appoint more women out of the applicants, if all other criteria are fulfilled. There is a complete absence of any such interest in promoting women in the legal profession by the courts and judges in India. In the same way that there is now a move on the part of the government to appoint more women judges, there needs to be an institutional effort to appoint more women lawyers as senior counsels.

The next big hurdle is that the criteria for selection are not known and the whole process is shrouded in secrecy. There are not open guidelines such as those in other commonwealth jurisdictions, no interviews, and no explanations or reasons given for non-selection. “Merit” is not defined – is it merely long years of practice, the number of reported judgments, the number of judges you have appeared before or anything else? A lawyer should ideally be designated as a senior counsel if she has shown excellence in advocacy in the high court or supreme court and there have to be some criteria formulated in order to judge applicants in a manner that is sophisticated and formalized, rather than just leave it to the discretion of the judges who would decide it without any guidelines. The absence of any guidelines or criteria for selection makes it more discouraging for women lawyers to apply. A clear and transparent selection process with guidelines for selection would make it easier for all lawyers, male and female, to ascertain whether they have a chance at being selected and then take the courage to apply. This has been done in the UK with a fair bit of success and a detailed application process is prescribed, with guidelines for application.

The Bar is a quite a ruthless place to be in and every move of every advocate, especially every woman advocate, is closely watched by other lawyers and judges. In such a situation, there is definitely added pressure on women not to make any wrong move that could affect their career. Applying for senior counsel and not being selected would definitely not be taken well at the Bar. This fear would be addressed if there are concerted efforts taken institutionally to ensure that there is transparency in selections and that there is an effort at encouraging women lawyers to apply for senior counsel selections and at selecting them as senior counsels. This effort has to come from the courts, the judges and the lawyers, especially other senior counsels.

For too long, senior counsels in India, have formed themselves into an elite male clique, and we need more women into this elite rung of the legal profession – to give the message to younger women lawyers that this position is achievable if you are good. This has been more difficult to achieve than even getting more women on the bench!

Salwa Judum as unconstitutional

The recent judgment of the Supreme Court holding the deployment of tribal youth as salwa judum for counter insurgency operations to be unconstitutional is quite a landmark judgement. It is a landmark for many reasons. This PIL has been in the Supreme Court for the last 3 -4 years and several interim orders were passed. Unlike the history of recent PILs where the entire case is made up of interim orders and then only to fizzle out in the end, this PIL is radically different. It has emerged with its final order with the Supreme Court holding the salwa judum to be in violation of Article 14 and 21 and directing the State of Chhattisgarh to immediately stop using SPOs for counter terrorism or anti-naxalite activities. Such a result, I strongly believe, has resulted because it is primarily a civil rights issue. The PIL did include social rights issues of the right to education and work etc., but it was primarily a civil rights issue which resulted in the final path breaking judgment. It was also remarkable because it reflected the work that the Petitioners had put in. Success in mammoth PILs like this requires everyone, the Petitioners and their counsels to put in immense amount of research and work.

I particularly liked this paragraph from the judgment...

"The Constitution casts a positive obligation on the State to undertake all such necessary steps in order to protect the fundamental rights of all citizens, and in some cases even of non-citizens, and achieve for the people of India conditions in which their human dignity is protected and they are enabled to live in conditions of fraternity."

The judgment can be accessed here.

How to handle stress!

I often keep looking out for interesting reading material on how women lawyers can handle stress better. I came across this piece which I quite liked - Stress Advice for Women Lawyers You Wont Read Anywhere Else.

Who Decides the Right to Die?

A short piece of mine on the recent judgment of the Supreme Court was published today in The Hindu - here's a link!