NALSAR INTRODUCTORY MOOT 2020

LESLIE YEP AND RON DUCKSON

(PETITIONERS)

v.

ALTA VISTA INC.

(RESPONDENT)
1. Pawnee is a peaceful and diverse country located on the continent of Indiana. It has only
one land border, with the country of Eagleton. Seventy years ago, Eagleton was in the
grips of a crippling depression, which led to a significant exodus of Eagletonians to
Pawnee. Pawnee also helped bail out the Eagletonian government by providing
considerable financial assistance. The move was costly for Pawnee, as Eagleton has still
not fully repaid the loans, and Pawnee’s economy took a long time to recover from it.
Meanwhile, Eagleton pursued aggressive economic growth by inviting foreign investment
and welcoming globalisation on a large scale. Eagleton is now a fully developed country,
which some say came at the cost of the civil and social rights of its citizens. On the other
hand, Pawnee adopted an isolationist economic policy which meant slow economic
growth but somewhat more all-round social development. Pawnee is widely viewed as
Eagleton’s poor cousin, despite its strong tradition of upholding the political, social, and
cultural rights of its citizens.

2. Leslie Yep is a long-serving public servant who works for the Ministry of Environment
and Forests (MoEF). Having achieved her civil service ambitions, in February 2019,
Leslie announced that she would be running for a seat in the parliament. The move was
widely appreciated, as during her time in the MoEF, Leslie gained a reputation for being
reliable, honest, and responsible. Leslie recruited Ron Duckson, her erstwhile boss, and
Tom Doesnthaveaford, her colleague from the MoEF to run her campaign. Leslie’s
primary political opponent is Robert Oldport, the heir to a large business that produces
iodised salt. Robert has attracted a large following by using emotional appeals to vilify
the Eagletonian immigrant minority, a move that strikes a chord with many Pawneeans,
despite his lack of political experience. The poll numbers are neck to neck and neither
candidate seems to be able to gain a clear margin over the other.

3. Oldport’s most recent tactic to gain an edge over Leslie has been to accuse her of being
an “Eagletonian elitist”, claiming that Leslie is actually an illegal immigrant from
Eagleton, demanding that she produce her birth certificate. Leslie is a Pawneean citizen,
but on principle, she refuses to produce her birth certificate, as her political platform is
based on equality and tolerance, and she strongly believes that Eagletonian immigrants
deserve the same rights as native Pawneeans. Moreover, her birth records are sealed, as
she was adopted at a young age.
4. Pawnee’s hottest bar is called Entertainment420. Entertainment420 is an extremely
exclusive, invitation-only speakeasy1 that caters to the elite of Pawnee. It is notorious for
serving an extremely potent blend of alcohol, CobraJuice, that is rumoured to be much
stronger than the legally permissible extent. After a particular long and tiring day of
refusing to cave in to Oldport’s demands, Leslie decided that she and her team needed an
evening off and secured invites to Entertainment420. Leslie initially wanted to remain
sober, but at the insistence of Tom, ordered CobraJuice for everybody. In a series of
extremely bad decisions, Leslie, Ron, and Tom ended up consuming copious amounts of
CobraJuice. The three of them woke up the next morning with no memory of the previous
night’s events.

5. Using clues to retrace their steps, the team pieced together the events of the previous
night. It turned out that, while they were intoxicated, someone at the bar had recognised
Leslie and started heckling her, calling her rude names including “dirty foreigner.” In a fit
of rage, Leslie left the bar, promising to procure “proof of her Pawneean-ness.” She then
proceeded to called up her friend at the local municipal corporation, demanding that her
adoption records be unsealed. Her friend agreed to help her and delivered the sealed file
to Leslie’s home. Leslie opened the file, and without scrutinising the contents, posted a
picture of her birth certificate Twitter. Within 10 minutes of making the post, Leslie
realised she had made a devastating mistake – the birth certificate showed that she was
born in Eagleton! She quickly took down the post, but the picture had already been seen
and shared by various prominent social media personalities. The news soon broke to
several news outlets, and the main story the next morning was that Leslie was in fact, a
naturalised citizen of Pawnee, originally from Eagleton. This caused chaos for the Yep
Campaign, with social media exploding with accusations that Leslie was a lying, cheating
Eagletonian. To add fuel to the fire, the news spread to Eagletonian social media, with
Twitter pundits in Eagleton hailing Leslie as “an Eagletonian hero” who was “bringing
culture and development to Pawneean peasants”, which was probably the most damaging
assertion of all. The entire news cycle was extremely detrimental to Leslie’s image,
leaving her polling numbers significantly below Robert Oldport. The post and its retweets
were removed from social media platforms at the request of the Yep Campaign, but

1
A retro-style bar that is often accessible only with a password. In general, they are associated with secrecy and
privacy, as they were originally established to escape the prohibition of alcohol laws in 1920s USA.
 online search results about Leslie on AltaVista, Pawnee’s largest search engine, continued
to display the picture, and often had inflammatory headlines.

6. Meanwhile, back at the bar, Ron was seized with artistic inspiration, having consumed
enough alcohol to become delusional. In a moment of brazenness, Ron shoved the lead
singer of the bar’s band off stage and began playing jazz music on a saxophone that he
had “borrowed”. Some observant audience members noticed that Ron looked strangely
similar to Duke Silver, a Pawneean jazz2 artist, who was not very popular in Pawnee, but
loved by the “posh” citizens of Eagleton. A few minutes later, Ron in fact ended his
performance by wishing the audience “A smooth and silky evening to you all. I’m Duke
Silver. Come with me and find safe haven in a warm bathtub full of my jazz”. At this
point, the club bouncers decided it was time to eject Ron from the club, and physically
threw the drunken campaign team out of the speakeasy. The entire scene was recorded by
people at the club and posted to social media, and by morning was trending with the
hashtag #DukeSloshed and #RonEagleson. Certain factions on Twitter accused Ron of
“supporting Eagletonian culture”, with some going so far as arguing that he was “anti-
national”. Eagletonians across the border were thrilled with the fact that the campaign
manager of a prominent Pawneean government figure apparently espoused Eagletonian
values. Fed up with the discourse, Ron requested social media platforms to take down the
posts, but links to the video remained accessible on AltaVista.

7. Leslie and Ron were both embarrassed by their drunk escapades. They filed suits
independently in the High Court seeking injunctions against AltaVista. Leslie requested
that any search results linking to her post and the photo of her birth certificate be taken
down, as they were personal information that had been the cause of harassment and were
potentially defamatory statements. On the other hand, Ron requested the video and any
search results linking to the video be taken down because he was a private citizen of
Pawnee, and the fact that he had been identified as Duke Silver, had brought him a lot of
unwanted attention. Additionally, he was afraid that the “anti-national” connotations
being attached to Duke Silver would lead to surveillance by the Pawnee Security Agency
(PSA). Specifically, both Ron and Leslie asserted that they had the “right to be

2
Jazz, in fact, has a contentious history in Pawnee. At one point, the public performance of jazz was banned by
an overzealous government for “encouraging the youth to adopt Eagletonian values”, before the ban was
overturned by the Supreme Court.
 forgotten”, and that the events of that night were personal information that should not be
shared with the world at large. Leslie and Ron also requested the Supreme Court’s
injunction against AltaVista be applicable to search results displayed in Eagleton as well.

8. Alta Vista is headquartered in Pawnee, but has a subsidiary in Eagleton. AltaVista argued
a right to be forgotten is an over-reach of the right to privacy. It said there should be a
balance between sensitive personal data and the public interest, and in fact, that the public
had a “right to remember”. AltaVista also argued that allowing this right would amount to
censorship. It strongly opposed the request to remove results in Eagleton as well, as it
contended that Eagleton did not recognise a right to be forgotten and that no one country
should be able to impose its rules on citizens of another.

9. Both of these cases are a watershed moment for Pawneean privacy jurisprudence, as there
has been no conclusive determination of whether a right to be forgotten exists in
Pawneean law. Given the substantial general importance of the question, the Supreme
Court under Art 139A3 of the Pawneean Constitution decided to transfer the cases to
itself. These are the issues to be addressed by the parties:

I. Should a right to be forgotten be established under Pawneean law?

II. If so, can (a) Leslie and (b) Ron avail of this right to remove their personal data
from the internet?
III. Assuming that the Supreme Court passes relief in favour of Leslie and Ron,
should that order be enforced by Eagletonian courts?

Relevant portions of the Pawneean Constitution are as under:

“19. (1) All citizens shall have the right—

(a) to freedom of speech and expression, which includes the right to seek, receive, and
impart information and ideas;

(b) to assemble peaceably and without arms;

(c) to form associations or unions;

(d) to move freely throughout the territory of India;

3
No analysis of Art 139A jurisdiction is required.
 (e) to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India;

(g) to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.

(2) Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing
law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes
reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause in
the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of Pawnee, the security of the State,
friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation
to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.

(…)

21. No person shall be deprived of her life or personal liberty except according to
procedure established by law.”

Note: The laws of Pawnee are in pari materia with Indian law. The civil procedure laws of
Eagleton are in pari materia with the Indian Civil Procedure Code, 1908, including rules and
case-law thereunder. Eagleton has notified Pawnee as a reciprocating country under the Civil
Procedure Code.

The use of jurisprudence from foreign jurisdictions is welcomed, where there is limited
Indian case law.

For all three issues, it is suggested that teams make policy-based arguments.

Drafted by:

The problem has been drafted by Samiha Gopal, Swini Khara and Rudra Deosthali. Please
do not contact them directly in relation to the Moot Problem. All queries/clarifications must
be routed through the Moot Court Committee.