Faculty In Charge: Mrs. Smita Sabne
The Corporate Law Cell, founded in September 2009, is a student run body overseen by faculty in-charge Mrs. Smita Sabne. The Cell, since its first academic year (2009 -2010) has grown by leaps and bounds.
The vision of the Corporate Law Cell for the academic year 2014-15 was to examine and understand the Pandora’s box opened by the introduction of the Companies Act, 2013 and to encourage student participation by promoting writing and research activities with a view of understanding the various facets of commercial laws. This year, the Cell intended to facilitate better comprehension of corporate laws among students through events, competitions etc. to supplement regular classroom learning experience.
The activities undertaken by the Cell this year are
Extempore Moot Court Competition:
To encourage and nourish advocacy skills among the students of I.L.S. Law College, the Corporate Law Cell organised an Extempore Moot Court Competition on 27 August 2014. The event was unique and generated interest as it was a deviation from the conventional mooting format where students are given ample time to prepare their case.
There were 11 moot problems based on Companies Act, Competition Act, Consumer Protection Act, Contract Act, Arbitration Act and Intellectual Property Laws and were drafted by Pooja Gera, Ritika Chatterjee, Poornima Balasubraniam, Harshavardhan Ganesan from V B.S.L. and Sanjana Bhatnagar, Anshul Chopra, Shraddha Sengaonkar, Sharada B. Krishnamurthy, Divyasha Mathur from IV B.S.L. The Cell also held a demonstration before the competition for the novice mooters.
The problems were released four hours before the preliminary round and the finalists were expected to argue a new moot case which was released thirty minutes before the final round of the competition. The format required students to analyse and prepare their arguments within this limited time frame.
The Cell, unlike the previous year, opened this competition to the first year students as well and ensured that they were not pitted against the experienced batches by holding separate rounds for them. This ensured a tremendous response from the students in the first year. A total of 128 students participated in the competition.
The following students from the final year judged the preliminary round: SnehaVishakha, Sharanya Kundu, Thulasi K. Raj, Jahnvi Pande, Sukanya Sahni, Shamin Marwah, Nilasha Mukherjee, Jeevita Pillai, Aparajita Narayan, Aneesa Cheema, Samyukta Balaji, Devikrishna, Zacarias Joseph, Charu Bansal, Shashank Mangal, Chaitrika Patki, Arnavi Panda, Kabir Sagar Ghosh, Poornima Balasubraniam, Pranay Jain, Harshavardhan Ganesan, Varsha Raman, Sharanya Sekaran, Swati Sinha, Sushant Mahajan, Sujay Prasanna.
The final round of the competition for the seniors was judged by Mr Manoj Wad, a practising advocate with experience of over 11 years at the Supreme Court in Corporate Litigation. The final round for the students of I B.A. LL.B. was judged by Harshavardhan Ganesan and Sukanya Sahni (V B.S.L. LL.B.).
8 students from II- IV B.S.L. LL.B. qualified to the final round of the competition: Akhila Palem, Disha Jham, Debopriyo Moulik, Sakshi Sahoo, Yash K, Urvashi Mehta, Parmeet Batra and Raghav Venkatesh while 6 students from I B.A. LL.B. qualified to the final round of the competition: Ayush Chaddha, Mrinalini Patil, Amala Maria George, Neha Deshmukh, Sonal Jain and Alisha Mohita.
The winners of the competition were: For senior batches- Akhila Palem (III B.S.L.) and for first year students- Ayush Chaddha (I B.A.LL.B).
The response was overwhelming and the Cell plans to continue organising it in the coming years as well.
Regular Monday Sessions:
The Cell has been organising regular sessions every Monday. These sessions have been on the following topics
- How to read a statute- The Consumer Protection Act, 1986
The Cell started its session this year from the very basics as the Cell held a session which focussed on emphasising on the correct way of reading and interpreting the provisions of a statute. The discussion was on the objects and purpose clause, application clause, definition clause, penalty clause and the jurisdiction and hierarchy of various courts. - Types of business enterprises
This session aimed at giving an overview on the various types of business enterprises like a company, partnership, limited liability partnership, one person company, sole proprietorship etc. and the laws governing the same. The session saw a discussion on the meaning of such enterprises, differences between them, required legal compliances and the viability of such enterprises. - Workshop on Deadly Internship Assignments
The aim of the workshop was to familiarise students with research techniques that could prove to be useful for them while working on internship assignments. Students were divided into five groups and each group was given a query based on varied commercial laws such as Contract Law, Company Law, Arbitration or Competition Law. Each group was required to prepare a note on the query given to them, identifying the issue, the provisions of law applicable and the legal position with respect to the issue. The time allotted for the exercise was 45 minutes. All the students who attended the session successfully prepared and presented a note. Few students were given a token of appreciation for preparing the Best Note. - Corporate Social Responsibility with regards to contribution towards the environment
This session, held in collaboration with Hariyali Cell, laid emphasis on the basic provisions of C.S.R. under the new Companies Act and the role it can play in the betterment of the environment. It commenced with a presentation explaining the provisions of law regarding C.S.R. Further, the students were divided into 6 groups wherein each group was allotted a type of business set-up, for e.g. infrastructure company, IT company etc and were expected to discuss and present before others the steps that their company planned to take in furtherance of their corporate social responsibility leading to the improvement and protection of the environment. - Guide to Placements- Tips from the final year students
This was a very interactive session, where students from the fifth year who have been handpicked by some of the top law firms and companies in the country by pre placement offers/ college placements or deserving candidates for world renowned universities shared their experience with the junior batches. Speakers included Nikhil Kaul placed at Crawford Bayley & Co., Dhananjay Charan placed at Juris Corp, Zacarias Kanjirath Joseph placed at Khaitan & Co., Nilasha Mukherjee placed at Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction, Shilpa Shenoy placed at Pangea3 (LPO), Pooja Gera Placed at E.L.P., Ritika Chatterjee placed at AZB & Partners and Harshavardhan Ganesan on LL.M. and making the tedious application process an easier task. The Cell saw maximum turnout for this session and the students found it very useful where they took back some useful tips regarding internships and placements. - Tutorial on using websites of MCA, RBI, SEBI optimally
This session was conducted primarily to teach students how to go about using the government websites of MCA, RBI and SEBI. It is very pertinent to understand how to access such information about companies that are available in the public domain especially while working on due diligence reports or during mergers or acquisitions. Further, all the relevant and updated Acts, rules, regulations, notifications are also available on these websites for quick reference. With the advent of technology, the knowledge of accessing such websites saves time and labour to gather relevant information. This exercise was to ease out work during internship when tasks involving the use of such websites are assigned. - Types of Joint ventures
This session was conducted by Pabitra Dutta from IV B.S.L. LL.B. The session touched upon the following- Commercial objectives of formation of Joint Ventures, laws regulating them, protective measures available for investors and dissolution of such structures. - Securities Law
This session was conducted by Zacarias Joseph from V B.S.L. LL.B. Since Securities Law forms a very important part of Corporate Law, the session concentrated on providing a primer on Securities Law, mainly targeting students of the first and second year. Basics like types of markets, different instruments traded in a market, regulations etc. were discussed. The session was useful in giving an introduction about the law to those who had little idea about it and was very well appreciated by all the participating students. - Direct Taxation ( in collaboration with Corporate Law Diploma)
The Cell collaborated with the Corporate Law Diploma to hold a two day session on direct taxation by Mr. Ameya Kunte, Co- Founder of Tax Sutra. - Competition Act, 2002 Overview – Mr. Dhruv Rajain
Since Competition Law has been garnering a lot of attention these days the Cell organised a session on the overview of the Competition Act, 2002 by Mr. Dhruv Rajain, who is an I.L.S. alumnus and is currently working in the Competition Law team at Khaitan & Co. He has also completed his Masters degree in Competition Law from Northwestern University. The session turned out to be very interactive and witnessed fruitful discussions on important case laws pertaining to Section 3, 4 and 5 of the Act. - Session by Ms. Srivalli Velan
Ms. Srivalli Velan, founder and CEO of HigherKnowledge- a company based in Bangalore that co-ordinates placements and internships for law students through an online technology platform, came down to explain how the platform can be used by students to find workplaces of their choice by answering simple queries on the website which are submitted by law firms themselves. This session was extremely helpful for the I and II year students who are often faced with difficulties while looking for internships. - Issuance of Shares
This session was conducted by Amogh Diwan from V B.S.L. explaining in detail about concepts of issuance of shares, starting from what are shares, when are shares issued and how are they issued. It was a comprehensive discussion on all the provisions pertaining to shares under the new Companies Act. - International Commercial Arbitration
Mr. Aniruddha Rajput, alumnus of ILS Law College, came down to give a lecture on International Commercial Arbitration. He has an experience of 6 years at the Supreme Court of India dealing with matters relating to Arbitration and Commercial Litigation. He is a PhD candidate and a Research Scholar at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He has also been a Visiting Professor of International Commercial Arbitration and International Trade Law at the Indian Law Institute.
Mr. Rajput has assisted in drafting of Arbitration and Conciliation Rules of LCIA (London Court of International Arbitration)-INDIA and
the Delhi High Court Arbitration Centre.
Newsletter
The co-ordinators of the Cell published published two issues of their Newsletter, ‘CorpRead’, containing highlights of the developments in various fields of corporate law including, Company Law, Competition Law, Arbitration, Intellectul Property Law, Taxation and Securities Law. The idea behind the newsletter was to create a comprehensive document, a quick read of which can help students keep themselves updated about the latest judgements, rules, notifications etc. The first edition in addition to the news updates also contained an article on ‘Incorporation of a Company under the Companies Act, 2013’ by Mr. Pritish Mukherjee, Associate at Advani & Co.; arguments in brief involved in 6th Herbert Smith National Moot Court Competition, 2014 and an internship experience at J. Sagar Associates, Mumbai by Avi Aggarwal, V B.S.L. The Second edition, included an internship experience at Surana and Surana International Attorneys by Sumedha Giridharan, IV B.S.L. Compiling the Newsletter, though a time consuming exercise was a very enriching experience for Co-ordinators of the Cell. After, receiving an overwhelimg response by the students, the Cell plans to release many more issues of CorpRead.
The Cell in this academic year successfully organised various events and sessions which saw a good turnout and generated an appreciable interest in Corporate Laws.
Corporate Cell’s day to day functioning in 2014-15 was managed by the following students-
- Pooja Gera (V B.S.L.)
- Ritika Chatterjee (V B.S.L.)
- Anshul Chopra (IV B.S.L.).
- Sanjana Bhatnagar (IV B.S.L.)
- Sharada Krishnamurthy (IV B.S.L.)
- Shraddha Sengaonkar (IV B.S.L.)
- Krishna Chaithanya (III B.S.L.)
- Praneeth Reddy (IV B.S.L.)