JGLS defeats SLS Pune in Nani Palkhivala Tax Moot; Law Centre 1 awarded Best Memo

The team from Jindal Global Law School, Haryana (JGLS) won the recently concluded Nani Palkhivala Tax Moot Court Competition conducted by Government Law College, Mumbai. The moot court competition, into its tenth year, saw JGLS defeat the team from Symbiosis Law School, Pune in the final rounds..The JGLS team consisted of Kartik Prasad, Parvati Parkott, and Alaukik Singh (researcher) with all three students receiving an internship with Nishith Desai Associates. The runners up team consisted of Shruti Raina, Gourav Mohanty and Adishree Chakraborty. The Best Memorial was awarded to the team from Law Centre 1, Delhi University while Sastra University’s Akshaya Sachin was awarded Best Researcher..Speaking to Bar & Bench, Raghav Garg, the General Secretary of the Moot Court Association at GLC, said that in many ways, this year’s edition was like, “a walk down memory lane”..“The Nani Palkhivala competition has become an event by itself,” says Raghav, “and is considered one of the country’s most prestigious moots.” Along with the moot compeititon itself, the MCA also conducted a research paper competition, for which it received 71 entries..Like previous editions, this year’s competition was also limited to select law schools that were invited to take part. This year’s edition also followed a similar trend when it came to selecting judges for the rounds; the finals were judged by sitting judges of the Bombay High Court while the preceding rounds were adjudicated by sitting members of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal. “This year we got Justices Sanklecha and Vazifdar, both of whom have sat on the Tax Bench, to judge the final round.” Furthermore, some of the oral rounds were held within ITAT court rooms..On how other colleges can organize similar moots, Raghav conceded that the advantage GLC has is that the GLC moots are already well-recognised; the challenge for other colleges is to build and sustain high levels of interest in a particular moot.