Page |1

The Legal
Comunicare
The law of sacrifice is uniform
throughout the world. To be effective it
demands the sacrifice of the bravest
and the most spotless.
-Mahatma Gandhi

The legal profession and industry in India is a

mysterious market that even its regulator
doesnt seem to have good grip on.
The Bar Council of India (BCI), the regulator of
all Indian advocates, states on its website that
there are approximately 1.2 million lawyers in
India plus approximately 400,000 to 500,000
studying law at this very minute, churning out
approximately 60,000 to 70,000 graduates
every year.

Demystifying Indias
legal system.
At least in terms of numbersthis puts India on
a par with the US, which still seems to remain
the worlds largest legal market with 1,201,968
practicing lawyers in 2010, according to the
American Bar Association.
But that is more or less where the comparisons
end.

Editorial Team
*Manu Shankar
* Vipral Patel
(Editor)
(Content Creator)
* Jigyasa Mehra
( Sub Editor)

*GhansyaPandey
( Content Creators)

The US is usually claimed to be overlawyeredi.e., there is the perception that

there are more lawyers than there is work
available. The average citizen perceives this in
aggressive TV adverts touting for legal services,
so-called ambulance chasing (lawyers running
after accident victims as potential clients) and a
litigious culture where lawyers win you crores
of rupees in compensation, such as in the often
quoted case of a consumer spilling McDonald s
coffee on herself, and winning compensation
from the fast food chain because the cups
content was too hot and the exterior didnt
have a prominent enough warning of that fact.
India, paradoxically, is both. Litigation is
certainly over-lawyered; at the high end its
very badly under-lawyered, claims Rajiv Luthra,
managing partner of law firm Luthra & Luthra.

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Indias legal population density is fairly average.
One in every 260 US citizens is a lawyer and in
the UK there is one lawyer to every 500 Brits
(see table). Only 1 in around 1,000 Indians are
lawyers but in other countries there are even
fewer lawyers per capita: one lawyer per 7,000
in China, 5,500 in Japan, 2,500 in South Africa
and 1,600 in France. On the other hand, when
comparing the number of lawyers to gross
domestic product (GDP), India is a global
record-holder at the bottom of the table of
countries where data is readily available. Each
Indian lawyer, on average, has to carve out a
livelihood and earn client fees out of only $1.4
million of GDP. Other countries lawyers have a

far, far bigger pie at their disposal. Brazil (with

as many lawyers per capita as the US) comes
closest at $3.1 million of GDP per lawyer
followed by Israel, which is said to have the
highest lawyer density in the world. In almost
all other major countries, GDP to lawyer ratios
are in the double digits, while in Japan each
lawyer has a massive $236 million of GDP to
play with.
This helps explain why in many legal markets
lawyers are seen as part of the wealthy elite
(most are too well-paid in the public
consciousnesspick up the average John
Grisham novel for supporting evidence). The
majority of lawyers in India are lawyers in name

alone. Poorly educated, if at all, with a law

degree of questionable legitimacy from one of
900-odd law colleges, they effectively operate
as fixers, making their living as affidavit wallahs
hawking for work outside small claims courts or
as notaries.
They could charge 50 to several hundred rupees
for the privilege. Nevertheless, they are tightly
integrated in the running of any court. These
are the lawyers that the average citizen
interacts with.
Chennai-based advocate Elizabeth Seshadri
once described some members of this group as
pseudo lawyers, who have presided over a fall
in the standards to make up for their lack of
actual legal skills. They are the ones who
regularly appear in headlines of lawyers going
on strike or even rioting.
At the other end are the senior advocates who
charge lakhs of rupees per appearancein
high-end litigation we have 15 guys that you
deal with, maybe 20, says Luthraand the
number of Indian corporate lawyers able to
provide high-end advice to large companies lies
between 3,000 and perhaps 9,000 at most,
estimates Luthra. Better data than such
guesstimates does not exist.
Even if you take a charitable figure of around
10,000 lawyers doing high-end corporate and
litigation work and compare this with Indias
GDP, you end up with $163 million of GDP per
high-end lawyer. Owners and senior partners of
major law firms are therefore anything but poor
(and even junior members of those firms are
not doing too badlysee story above).
It is clear that India effectively consists of at
least two different legal professions. One of
these has huge room for growth and needs to

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grow so that Indian companies and foreign
investors get high quality legal advice. At the
other extreme too many lawyers have
paralyzed the court system where cores of
cases are pending. Indian legal regulators and
politicians will fail in their task unless they
explicitly recognize this dichotomy and work
towards reforming it.
******

Her anguish was understandable. Since entering

the petition in 1994, theAndolan had presented
a mountain of evidence that the project had
flouted its conditions of construction and was
unlikely to fulfill its promises to take water to
thousands of parched villages in Gujarat. Only
one judge had treated the NBAs evidence with
respect. Because of the decision, the lands and
forests that support the lives of 200,000 people
will be submerged. To date, the rehabilitation
they are entitled to is, for many, a sham.
Thousands of others who dont face actual
submergence also face destitution, but there is
no rehabilitation at all for them.
I am in a restaurant in Mumbai having lunch
with a group of activists and journalists who
have long supported the Narmada movement

and its dharnas struggles. They were

gathered here by Medha Patkar by phone
the night before. In Medhas hands the
phone is an instrument of dharna there
are hundreds of numbers in her head, and
under her relentless dialing India awakes. At
this moment she is trying to meet the Chief
Minister to discuss the fate of people
displaced by large projects. Later she will be
arrested for marching at their head. She is a
truly extraordinary person.

On 18 October 2000 the Supreme Court of India

handed down an historic judgment. The
Narmada Bachao
Andolan (Save
Narmada
movement NBA) had petitioned the Court to
halt the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
on the Narmada River. By a majority of two to
one the judges decided that the dam should go
up from its existing 88 meters towards the full
final height of 139 meters. On the evening
television news the leader of the NBA Medha
Patkar was seen by the nation to be in tears.

Sixteen years ago Medha started walking from

village to village in the area to be submerged by
the Sardar Sarovar dam, and a peoples
movement took off. In the late 1980s it became
an international cause clbre, campaigning for
the World Bank to cancel its $450 million loan
to the project. In 1993, the Bank withdrew an

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unprecedented event, helped by international
pressure and a damning review from a highlevel independent team.1 But the state filled the
gap. The dam went on rising. So did the struggle
in the Valley. In 1999, the Booker Prize-winning
author, Arundhati Roy, gave a new burst of
international publicity to the Narmada cause in
a widely published essay, The Greater Common
Good.2 She fights on for Narmada with her pen
and her celebrity presence.
I met Medha Patkar at an international
meeting. I had been hired by someone to write
about large dams and I thought I should go and
look at one. An artist friend, Lucy Willis, wanted
to come too. Medha welcomed us. We were
innocents. I never realized what we would find.
I ask my Mumbai lunch companions where I
should start. The Narmada story winds through
the political, economic and cultural fabric of
three Indian states (Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh
and Maharashtra) and up into the international
stratosphere to the battle-lines against
globalization. Its themes, sagas, betrayals, plots
and sub-plots are tortuous. How can I make
sense of all this in the short pages of a
magazine, for people who couldnt find the river
on a map, and usually pronounce it like Armada
instead of Narrma-Da.
Dilip DSouza, a journalist, is emphatic. You
must start with the Supreme Court judgment.
But, I protest, the judgment is the climax, the
denouement, the nadir it will be like starting
at the end. No, the others agree. Start with
the judgment. The judgment is of immense
significance. So I have.
The judgment is not just a verdict on this large
dam. It is a verdict on whether the state is
willing to question its iron-clad commitment to

a form of grand-slam development which

wreaks massive human and environmental
damage for dubious economic gain. Not only
Gandhis inheritors, but other hard-nosed
analysts are asking why after 50 years of it
are Indias water problems getting worse, its
small farmers driven to the wall, its poverty
more rampant. Millions of Indians have had
their livelihoods obliterated by bulldozers and
concrete massifs. They have been pauperized,
and for what?
Since
they
are
mainly
farmers,
labourers, dalits (untouchables)
or adivasis(indigenous people), their capacity to
make themselves heard is limited. Their
sacrifice to the greater common good has
been taken for granted by a middle-class India
spoon-fed on development as engineering
triumph. Much of the good from these
projects ends up in the pockets of politicians,
bureaucrats and contractors. The damage they
inflict on people is seen by a growing minority
as unjustifiable. The people themselves are
increasingly refusing to accept it.
Thus the Andolan had asked the Supreme
Court, acting for the state, to re-consider its
commitment to a development model which
cripples the poor to line the pockets of vested
interests, and the Court refused. The Court said
a number of contradictory things.3 It said that it
was none of the Supreme Courts business to
consider these matters. But it also produced a
gratuitous eulogy on the virtues of large dams,
ignoring all recent Indian evidence to the
contrary.

Page |5
The judgment also suggested in breach of
democratic principle that it was a good thing
for tribal peoples to be uprooted; this would
help improve them and bring them into the
social mainstream. It said the terms of the
award to build the dam are inviolable; then it
ignored the many ways that they are being
breached. Finally, it dismissed the Andolans
right to question the states decision to build
the dam. Having accepted the case six years
ago, the Court now said it should not have been
brought. This implies that peoples movements
may not use the Supreme Court to question the
executive arm of government. Given the
parlous state of Indian politics, this drastically
reduces the chance of democratic redress
against official ineptitude or bad faith.
Where this will all lead, nationally and
internationally, is up for play. In the new
globalized economy, the victims are not just
exploited but excluded. They are expendable
because they are not needed to create the new
wealth. Exclusion is far worse than mere
exploitation. If the Supreme Courts decision on
Narmada is a license for the forced exclusion of
millions of Indians from the common resource
base, then something radical may well be
unleashed.
The day after the judgment, Medha Patkar was
again interviewed on TV and regretted shedding
tears the night before. Why have faith in the
countrys supreme judicial instrument to right
the wrongs inflicted by the dam? What an error.
Why expect solid evidence to influence the
ultimate arbiters in a land whose establishment
is as inflexible as the concrete it adores? For
sentiments like these Medha, Arundhati Roy,
and the NBAs chief advocate, Prashant
Bhushan, have since been charged with
contempt.

Medhas tears are something people talk about

on my journey to Narmada. Is a woman in the
Indian public eye to show only ruthlessness, like
Mrs Gandhi, or lose respect? Medha worries
about respect because she said publicly she
would commit Jal Samarpan sacrifice by
drowning if the dam rose above 88 metres. It
has and she did not.
When you have gone to the extreme of nonviolent protest, where else is there to go? Since
1988 the Andolan has tried by every
conceivable means to halt the Sardar Sarovar.
They have sat-in, fasted, captured dam-sites,
occupied government buildings, gone to court,
to jail, and faced drowning by the monsoon
flood. They have demanded information and
they have published facts about
overestimates of water flows, about inflated
irrigation expectations, about lack of land for
re-settlement, about costs spiraling out of
control. In the early 1990s submergence
became annually more dreadful. In spite of the
World Bank withdrawal, in spite of a
government review, in spite of everything, still
the dam went up.
The 1994 petition to the Supreme Court was a
final throw. Medha Patkar, looking back, says
that she did not want to go to the court unless
it was really necessary. I always felt it was
unwise to go with a case unless if it fails the
movement is strong enough to take the blow.
But after ten years, with so much evidence
compiled, with wide national and international
support, they took the risk. They succeeded in
delaying construction. But in the end the case
failed. A majority verdict, whatever the minority
opinion, is a majority verdict. It was a major
blow.
*******

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The death of Nido Tania came as a shock to

India. At one level it was the cold-bloodedness
of the tragedy that was shocking. At another,
what shocked most people in the national
mainstream, far from the northeastern
hinterland, was the very possibility and
prevalence of racial discrimination and
horrendous racial violence in the very heart of
our self-proclaimed tolerant society. The first
shock is more of an emotive response from
the human heart that throbs in the countrys
mainstream.

without liquidating the uniqueness of each to to

those indigenous cultures. However, the
dominant understanding today and the mindset

behind the government policy towards the

northeast is that those tribal hinterlands
are clinically detached from the
mainstream; and the mainstream is seen
as that represented by the North Indian
Hindu. This mindset was manifested in a
statement by the Home Secretary on May 3,
2010 where he argued that the tribal
population is gradually finding its way into

Hidden Racism and Sheer Amnesia!

By Vipral Patel
However, the second shock is more
disconcerting, for it is not just an emotive
response but a reaction arising out of our
complete ignorance of the continuous racial
friction in our society and the lack of cultural
understanding of the regions distant from the
mainland, especially the northeast. It is this
situation that calls for a sociological
examination. In the heart of the issue we find
the incompetency and inadequacies in the
political action and state responses and the
socio-cultural attitude they engender towards
the northeast.
At the dawn of Independence, Jawaharlal Nehru
proclaimed that one of the tasks of free India
was to integrate the rich tribal culture into the
national mainstream. In the six and a half
decades that followed, we have twisted and
distorted the spirit in which Nehru spoke those
words. Nehrus Endeavour was to
accommodate the rich culture of tribal regions
within the precincts of the national mainstream

The mainstream since they are seen to be

celebrating the Hindu festival of Dasara.
This belief being that efforts be made to
make others absorbed in this mainstream.
The very idea of looking down upon the tribal
culture as something that is to be assimilated
into the dominant, mainstream culture by
means of state action, engenders a social
attitude of discrimination and subordination
based on racial lines. The social psyche that has
developed over a period of time is that
anything other than the dominant mainstream
is not worth appreciating until and unless it
loses itself into the mainstream. The atrocities
perpetrated by the armed forces under the
auspices of pieces of legislation such as the
Armed forces (Special Powers) Act, reflects the
same mindset. It is portrayed as if the region
being infested with insurgencies is culturally
underdeveloped and has to be chided and
forced into civic values and mingled into the
developed and more civilized mainstream
culture. Anuradha Chenoy et al , in Maoist and

Page |7
Other Armed Conflicts , argue: A dominant,
mainstream model undoes the very idea of
multiple modes of living and diversity. It
excludes the real demands from these regions
for justice, dignity, equity, opportunity and
rights.
Today, the socio-economic mobilization and the
dissolution of fragmented socio-cultural spaces
produced by economic changes have spawned
competition and jousting for jobs. This
economic jostling and competitive contact of
cultural groups adds to the inter-cultural
friction. What we need today is not just
territorial integrity based on the mainstream
model that subjugates the other, but an
emotional integration of each group with the
other. This cannot be achieved by mingling
other cultures into the dominant mainstream
but by developing a genuine appreciation for
the uniqueness of each culture in itself. This
genuine appreciation can be developed only
through cultural understanding and true
knowledge of other cultures.
********

Is Indian Law
Biased against
Men..?
By Ghansyam pandey

n our recent judgments the court's

decision to ask a man to compensate his
live-in partner for not marrying her had

opened a Pandora's box. From bloggers,

lawyers, to the junta at large, most seemed
to eye the ruling with apparent misgivings.
But the section of society that is the most
worried, or rather, outraged by some of the
recent changes in Indian law, is no doubt
the men. Be it the Domestic Violence Act
passed by the government last year or the
recent ruling of the Rajasthan High court
that stated that a wife could live with her
paramour men seem to have been
shortchanged by the entire judicial process.
Or so the responses of our readers,
bloggers, and a cross section of men we
spoke to leads us to believe.
'The law is biased against men'
According to most of our readers, the law is
becoming increasingly biased against men.
Can't a woman live-in partner walk away?
Does the law protect men? Does the
Domestic Violence law protect men against
women? These are only some questions
most men are asking. As one reader writes,
" I am astonished that the Indian judiciary
system is run by backward thinkers. What is
the itch to "protect" women and make
them even "weaker"? In the Western world
all this is not heard of.....We can never be a
developed nation without strong social
objectives. The law is biased against men."
"I think the Indian law has always favored
women; men have always had a tough time
trying to prove their innocence," feels
Shirish, a self-employed design solutions
expert.

Page |8

While men are crying out loud, their plea

for help may not be in vain. According to
the National Crime Records Bureau, 44.7
per cent of married men committed suicide
in 2003 as compared to 25 per cent of
married women who succumbed to
domestic abuse that year.
"The number of false dowry and even
higher number of abuse cases have
increased in recent years. With the Indian
criminal justice system being so lethargic,
and its inherent bias against men, most of
the abused husbands have no option but to
put up with the abuse, mental, emotional
and even physical," writes a blogger.
'Women are misusing the law'
And it's not just the unfair nature of the
law that is bothering Indian men. What's
most worrying is the fear of being falsely
implicated by women. Here what one
reader has to say: "Women are misusing
the security provided by law. The law is in
favor of women and is creating lot of
problems for men who are innocent."
According to Indrajit, a marketing
consultant, "Though the law is required to
protect women, at the same time, it is quite
evident that a few women are twisting the
law in their favor to gain monetarily. There
needs to be a check on that. Just because a
woman files a petition at the National
Commission for Women doesn't mean she
is right and the man is wrong! And that's
precisely why you have these cells coming
up for men; these little posters advertising a

community of men who are harassed by

women under the pretext of law."
Call for help ???
This community of men who have joined
hands to "fight the evil of 'misuse of 498a'
(commonly known as dowry law) is one of
the few organizations that have been set up
in recent years to help people, specifically
men, who have been falsely implicated.
Officially known as the Save Indian Family
Foundation, the community first came into
existence three years ago on the Internet
and mainly comprised of techies and
software engineers. Today, the organization
consists of more than 2000 plus members
across the world and about 400 in the US
and aims to "provide clarity about the law"
to men in distress.

According to Ashish Mukhi, president of the

Delhi chapter of Save Indian Family
Foundation, the Indian law is biased against
men, almost to a 'ridiculous extent'. "This
law (domestic violence) has been derived
from the US. But in the US the law clearly
states that a victim can be irrespective of
race, color, class, or 'gender'. The 'gender'

Page |9

word has been excluded from Indian law. In

India, about 20-30 per cent of men or their
family members have been abused by their
wives. And in almost all cases of family
abuse, the woman is the abuser," he says.
"In the US the law covers sexual, mental,
physical, emotional abuse. In India they
have included verbal abuse in the law. It is a
mistake. Verbal abuse is not measurable.
Also the provision that 'the decision can be
arrived at the sole testimony of the woman'
is completely wrong. Every person should
have a right to defend himself. It's a basic
human right!" he adds.
With organizations such as Save Indian
Family Foundation championing their cause,
more and more men are proclaiming their
'basic rights' with increased fervor. Will they
be heard?

accept them. Children who are born into

brothels tend to follow the profession of
their parent. In most cases 75 % of their
earning is shared with the brothel owners
,police and those who recruit these girls
thus leaving the women with very little
income to maintain their families .

******

Red lit Streets, A Forgotten Tale..

By Jigyasa Mehra
As the saying goes it is better to be safe
than sorry. Initially women prostituted
themselves as a means of obtaining steady
income. .They were poor and possibly
illiterate and hence could not provide for
their families by work. Some of the women
were raped and therefore feeling ruined
joined brothels as they felt no one would

The downfall of such an occupation is that

due to the lack of women volunteering for it
, there is an increase in human trafficking
because of which it becomes difficult to
distinguish between the womens forced
into it and those who opt for it. Hence not
only adults are affected but children are
also dragged into this trade . Not only these
even the health of these women are not
taken into consideration by the brothel

P a g e | 10

owners and the agents. Even after all

these the victims do not raise their voice
against it , since the profession is so frond
upon , the number of people who are ready
to fight for them against the inhuman
behavior or speak up for them are very few
. The common opinion of general society
towards these woman are not dignified.
The sex industry these days is more of
business than anything else, women decide
to take it as profession. On the other hand
modern society is being protected in one or
the other way because the lustful mindset
of man are controlled with the help of this
red light areas, if this red light area do not
exist in our society the crime or illtreatment against women will be more.
Hence we can say that these red light areas
help in reducing crimes against women .
Even after all these still we see these
women with disrespectful eyes. In one of
the greatest festival of Hinduism that is
Durga pooja there is a belief that every man
who enters a prostitute home leaves all his
purity and virtues behind . hence forth the
mud of this prostitutes home is a must to
make Goddess durgas idol which is
considered incomplete without it .
Its high time that the society needs to
changes their mindset towards this women
and respect them without taking in
consideration of their profession because
even they are a crucial part of our society.
*****

Campus Check
The CMR Law School, located in Bangalore.
The Law School is committed to providing
its students

a three year LLB program the five year BA

LLB and BBA LLB programs, but also seeks
to cater to a divergent multitude, by
incorporating value added and customized
academic programs of practical utility to
students of integrated disciplines. The
teaching staff comprises full time
experienced and skilled professional and
visiting faculty .The College conducts a
biennial National level Moot Court and a
National Level Cross Examination
Competition which has been by far the only
one of its kind. The Students of CMR Law
School have continuously succeeded in
winning several awards in various National
level Moot Court, Client Counseling and
Model Parliament Competitions. CMR Law
School has recently been ranked one of the
top ten law colleges in Karnataka
by Lawyers Update a monthly publication.
The campus provides students with access
to high-tech facilities and unique
opportunities to further their own personal

P a g e | 11

and professional development.

Incorporating the latest in technology and
infrastructure has been a testament to the
spirit of its founder and remains the
continued commitment of the
Management. CMRLS constantly strives
towards encouraging each individual to go
beyond themselves to choose a progressive
path towards knowledge, commitment and
success
*******

Furthermore, 44% of those working in law

firms said they wanted to start their own law
firms or practices, reflecting a trend that has
showed no sign of slowing for the past several
years in the Indian legal market, where almost
every week there is a new start-up.
Despite the relative scarcity of start-up
practices begun by in-house lawyers, 60% of
the lawyers working in corporate departments
also harbour entrepreneurial ambitions.
It is counterintuitive then that most Indian
lawyers are fairly happy with where they work.

Indian lawyers have it pretty good when

compared with the average citizen, of whom
only 8% are positive about their jobsas a
Gallup survey revealed last week.
Nevertheless, the corporate law profession
faces a crisis of confidence.

About 59% of those working in law firms either

agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed
their current jobs. Among in-house lawyers,
51% were positive about their current roles.

Lawyers happy with their job, but will still shift

B

By Live Mint.com
In a survey of 536 lawyers conducted

The most joyous are the lawyers working in

by Legally India, only a small minority see

the courts, 71% of whom said they enjoyed

themselves staying in their current jobs. Only

their daily cut-and-thrust.

15% of the law firm lawyers said they could

see themselves working in the same firms

Why?

three years later, and more than half couldnt.

The lack of a good work-life balance, often

The statistic was similar for in-house company

seen as the bane of a corporate lawyers job,

lawyers.

is an issue for 31% of the law firm lawyers.

That figure increases significantly at large
corporate law firms, where a lack of a work-life
balance is the main cause of dissatisfaction.
Stop giving the clients the right to call us at
insane hours, requests one corporate lawyer.

P a g e | 12

Indeed, it is telling that among in-house

lawyers, who are generally the ones who call
the law firm lawyers at insane hours, only
15% complain about their work-life balance,
and 60% are happy about their hours.
The lack of perceived opportunities could be
the crux to why lawyers feel the need to move
on so often. Only 27% of the lawyers are
happy about the careers and the
advancement opportunities offered by their
law firms; this statistic rises just slightly to
30% for lawyers at companies.
The single largest complaint among law firm
lawyers is the lack of professionalism that they
perceive in their workplaces. More than twothirds of the law firm lawyers said they wished
their workplaces were run more
professionally; this was the most common
suggestion given by respondents on what they
would change about their firm. Partisan
family-oriented management, is how one

Nevertheless, 66% of the lawyers at the bar

respondent described his workplace. Several

disagreed with the statement that the bar is

called for greater transparency in their offices.

not a lucrative career option with a firm eye

Honey money.

on the future; 83% of the advocates said they

wanted to be senior counsels one day and

Pay was less often directly cited as a problem

80% said they had a realistic chance of

by lawyers in law firms and companies, but

becoming senior counselsa sure ticket to a

51% of the lawyers in law firms said they were

lucrative and respected practice.

not satisfied with their remunerations. In

comparison, only 40% of the in-house

But considering that historically fewer than a

lawyers, despite generally earning lower

dozen advocates are designated as senior

salaries than their law firm counterparts,

counsels every year on average in the Delhi

complained about their remunerations.

and the Bombay high courts, that outlook may

be optimistic.

Perhaps most unequivocal were the litigating

advocates, particularly juniors27% of them
strongly disagreed that they were satisfied
with the pay.

*******