NHRC-NUSRL NATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION 2023

24TH-25TH MARCH 2023

ORGANIZED BY

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF STUDY AND RESEARCH IN LAW, RANCHI

IN

JOINT COLLABORATION WITH

NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

 NHRC-NUSRL NATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION, 2023

These are the rules for the NHRC-NUSRL National Moot Court
Competition, 2023.

1. Definitions
1.1 “Administrator(s)” means the Moot Court Committee of National University
of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi, members thereof, or any persons
appointed for the administration and conduct of the Competition, by the Moot
Court Committee.
1.2 “Advanced Round” means the Quarter Finals, Semi Finals and the Finals.
1.3 “Competition” means the NHRC-NUSRL National Moot Court Competition,
2023.
1.4 “IST” means Indian Standard Time.
1.5 “Memorial” means the written arguments submitted by each team in
pursuance of these Rules.
1.6 “Oral Round” means the Preliminary Rounds and the Advanced Rounds.
1.7 “Participant” refers to any member of any institution participating in the
competition.
1.8 “Preliminary Rounds” refers to the round conducted prior to the Advanced
Round for the purposes of determining as to which teams shall move
forward to the advanced rounds.
1.9 “Primary Contact Person” means any member designated by a team to
serve as a one-point contact for the administrators.
1.10 “Roles” refers to the roles of a speaker or a researcher.
1.11 “Scouting” means a person observing the Oral Rounds of a team other than
the team such person is associated with.
1.12 “Speaker” refers to a participant who presents oral arguments in any given
round.

1.13 “Team Code” refers to the code allocated to a participating institution by

the administrator after completion of the Registration.

2. Interpretation

The administrators will have the exclusive authority to interpret the Rules in the interest
of fairness and equality. The interpretation placed upon these Rules by the
administrators shall be final and binding. Moreover, on any instance not covered by
these Rules, the administrators shall have the sole discretion.
3. Key Dates
3.1 The following key dates shall be adhered to:

Last Date for Registration – 10th March 2023

Last Date for seeking Clarifications – 01st March 2023
Last Date for Submission of Memoranda – 19th March 2023
Date of Oral Rounds – 24th – 25th March 2023
3.2 Unless specified otherwise, the dates mentioned shall refer to 11:59 PM IST on
that date.
3.3 The authority to change deadlines for any individual team is retained by the
administrators. However, the memorandum submission deadline shall NOT
be extended for any individual team and shall remain the same for all teams.
4. Venue
The oral rounds of the moot court competition shall be held in-person at National
University of Study and research in Law, Ranchi.

5. Eligibility
The Competition is open to all students, enrolled bonafide on a regular basis in an
Undergraduate law course or its equivalent conducted by any recognized institution.

6. Team Composition

6.1 A team can have a minimum of two members and a maximum of three
members. In each of the oral rounds two members of the team will be
speakers.
6.2 A team of three members must designate any two members as the speakers.
6.3 Each team shall designate one member as the Primary Contact Person.
6.4 Once registered, a team will not be permitted to vary the composition of the
team in any manner including the roles as originally assigned to the
members. Changes, if any, may only be made with the express permission
of the administrators (at their discretion), if due reason is shown for the
same.
7. Outside Assistance

Every team must research and write its memorandum without the assistance of
non-members. Teams may receive general advice from Faculty Advisors and/or
 Coaches. However, such advice must be limited to general advice on the area
of law concerned, structure of arguments and general commentary on the team’s
arguments.

8. Registration

Each team shall register for the competition by filling an online registration form
no later than the last date of registration mentioned in Rule 3 above. The
registration form is available https://forms.gle/PpWEz1sef9H2GJNa9 and in
case of any difficulties, the form can also be requested from the administrators
by any eligible student.

9. Registration Fees

The registration fee for all teams is Rupees 4,500. The registration fee is non-
refundable and has to be paid by all teams.

10. Payment of Registration Fees

10.1 Teams are required to pay the registration fee as mentioned in Rule 8 above
only when they receive a confirmation of part registration by the
administrators after filling the registration form.
10.2 Teams who have received a confirmation of part registration can pay the
registration fee through RTGS/NEFT/IMPS/Demand Draft. The details for
the payment are as follows:
Name of the Beneficiary: NUSRL, Ranchi

Account No: 490710110003104

IFSC: BKID0005900

Branch Name: NUSRL- Campus, Ranchi

Account Type: Savings Bank

10.3 Any transfer fees or any other incidental charges must be paid by the
transferor. The wire transfer must also indicate the name of the institution
 for which the transfer has been made.

11. Clarifications to Problem

11.1 All requests for clarifications to the problem must be emailed to

nhrcnusrlmoot@gmail.com latest by 01st March 2023.

11.2 The request for clarifications should be clear and related to the facts of the
case and not related to the substantive arguments.
11.3 All clarifications issued shall be communicated to the teams via e- mail.
11.4 The clarifications as and when issued shall become a part of the Moot
Problem.

12. Anonymity of Teams

Teams must not reveal the name of their institution, or country of origin, or names of
the participants, anywhere in the memoranda or in the course of the oral arguments.
Provided that speakers may refer to themselves and other speakers in an oral round
by their respective names. A team must be identified only by the team code that will
be allotted to it after registration.

13. Memoranda

13.1 General
Each team shall prepare one memorandum from each side, i.e., the
Petitioner(s)/Appellant(s) and the Respondent(s).

13.2 Rights over Memoranda

a) The administrators reserve the right to publish and disseminate
memoranda submitted to and for the Moot. The memoranda shall be
attributed to the relevant institution and participants during such
publication and dissemination. Submission of memoranda in this Moot
shall constitute consent to such publication and dissemination.
b) The administrators also reserve the right to use the memoranda submitted
for any other purpose they may deem fit while ensuring appropriate
attribution.
13.3 Submission of Memoranda

a) All teams shall send a soft copy of memoranda for each side in both
Microsoft Word and PDF formats, via e-mail, on or before 19th March
2023 (11:59 P.M. IST) to nhrcnusrlmoot@gmail.com only.
b) Any submission made after 19th March 2023 (11:59 P.M. IST)
will be considered late submission and penalized accordingly.
c) Each memorandum should be contained in a single file with the name
of the file being the allocated team code followed by the first letter of
the party whose arguments are presented in that memorandum, i.e., an
R for Respondent(s) and A for Petitioner(s)/Appellant(s). For instance,
the Respondent memorandum of team code 2 should be named “2R”.
d) For every hour of delay in memorandum submission from the
prescribed time of submission, one mark shall be deducted. Any
memorandum submitted 12 hours after the time prescribed above will
not be accepted and the team will not be allowed to participate except
at the discretion of the administrators. The decision of the
administrators shall be final in this regard.
e) The teams shall bring 4 hard copies of each side of their memoranda
for the physical oral rounds.
13.4 Format of Memoranda
a) Memorandum Structure
Each memorandum must contain all of, and only, the following
components:
(i) Cover page;
(ii) Table of Contents;
(iii) Table of Abbreviations;
(iv) Index of Authorities;
(v) Statement of Jurisdiction;
(vi) Statement of Facts;
(vii) Issues Raised;
(viii) Summary of Arguments;
(ix) Arguments Advanced/Pleadings; and

(x) Prayer
 b) Font and Spacing
(i) The text font for the Arguments Advanced and Prayer, including
that of all headings and sub-headings must be Times New
Roman, size 12 with 1.5 line spacing.
(ii) The text font for the footnotes must be Times New Roman, size 10
with 1.0 line spacing. There must be no additional space between
two footnotes.
(iii) Each page in the memoranda must have a margin of one inch
on all sides.
(iv) The page size should be A-4.

c) Citations and Footnotes

(i) It is not permitted to provide any information in the footnotes that is
not related to the identification of an authority or source. Footnotes
may not include additional legal arguments.

(ii) The citations shall be in 20th Bluebook Edition

14. Qualifications for Oral Rounds

The administrators reserve the right to conduct a Memorial Qualifier round in

case the number of participating teams exceeds criteria set by the administrators.

15. Procedure for Oral Rounds

15.1 General
a) The Competition shall consist of preliminary rounds and advanced
rounds. Each team shall argue in two (2) Preliminary Rounds: once as
Claimant and once as Respondent. The Advanced Rounds shall, unless
otherwise specified, consist of three knock-out rounds – Semi-Finals and
the Final.
b) During the oral round, only the two speakers and the researcher (if any)
can be present during the oral round. Any other person affiliated to the
participant institution shall not be present during the oral rounds and shall
not aid the speakers or communicate with them in any manner.
 c) Before the start of the oral round of any team, the team shall inform the
timekeeper of the names of the two members who will be presenting oral
arguments in that round. The team shall also inform the timekeeper
regarding the allocation of time between themselves and the time
reserved for rebuttal/sur-rebuttal keeping within the prescribed time
limits. Once so informed, these timings shall not be changed.
d) For the oral rounds, each team may distribute its allocated time as it
deems fit, provided that no speaker is allocated less than 40% of the time
allocated to that team for that round. No more than 20% of the time
allocated to the team shall be reserved for its rebuttal/sur-rebuttal. For
instance, an acceptable allocation for a 30-minute time allocation may be
12 minutes for each speaker‟s main arguments and 6 minutes for rebuttal/
sur- rebuttal.
15.2 Preliminary Rounds

a) Each team shall have 30 minutes to argue in the Preliminary Rounds.

b) The top four teams from the Preliminary Rounds shall advance to the
Advanced Rounds.
c) If the total number of participating teams exceeds 30, there shall be a
Quarter Final Round before the Advanced Rounds mentioned in the
foregoing provision. The rules for such Round shall be same as Semi-
Finals.
15.3 Semi-Final Rounds

a) Each team shall have 45 minutes to argue in the Semi Finals.

b) The pairing shall be as follows:
Semi 1: Rank 1 of Prelims v. Rank 4 of Prelims

Semi 2: Rank 2 of Prelims v. Rank 3 of Prelims

c) The winners of the Semi Finals shall advance to the Finals.

15.4 Final Rounds

Each team shall have 45 minutes to argue in the Final.

16. Rebuttals/Sur-rebuttals

a) The rebuttal/sur-rebuttal may be presented by only one speaker of team

for all the issues.
b) The Respondent team may use the time set aside for sur-rebuttal only if the
Petitioner(s)/ Appellant(s) team exercises its right to rebuttal.
c) The Petitioner(s)/Appellant(s)‟s rebuttal must be limited to responding
to the Respondent's oral pleadings; whereas the Respondent’s sur-
rebuttal is limited to responding to the Petitioner(s)/Appellant(s)‟s
rebuttal.

17. Scouting
Team members, or individuals directly affiliated with a team, may observe only
those preliminary rounds in which their team is competing. Any form of scouting is
strictly prohibited and shall entail disqualification of the team. The decision of the
administrators shall be final in this regard.

18. Dispute Resolution

In case of any dispute arising during the course of the moot, the decision of the
organizing committee shall be final and binding on all the participants of the moot.