Legislative Council chairperson Tarakant Jha addresses the moot court at CNLU in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Budding lawyers put their argumentative skills to the test at the first national moot court competition of Chanakya National Law University (CNLU), Patna. Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur, beat Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) School of Law, Bhubaneswar, in the final round on Sunday to win the argument.

The competition, organised by the law institute with Mumbai-based DH Law Associates, was inaugurated on CNLU campus on Friday. The law institute had selected euthanasia (mercy killing) as the topic for the debate.

A moot court is a popular co-curricular activity at law schools where participants take part in simulated court proceedings, usually to draft briefs and participate in arguments. It allows students to sharpen their research and argumentative skills. At the CNLU competition, three-member teams were given half-an-hour to speak for or against the topic. Two members were speakers, while one was a researcher, who assisted them.

Saurav Singh, a fourth-year student of CNLU and member of the moot court competition organising committee, said: “We chose euthanasia as the topic because it is a burning issue.”

Thirty-seven teams from premier law institutes across the country battled it out at the competition. Apart from the finalists, Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law-IIT Kharagpur and Lloyd Law College, Greater Noida, had reached the semi-finals on Sunday.

Assessed by Patna High Court judges, Justice Navneeti Prasad Singh, Justice A.K. Tripathi, Justice Vikash Jain and Justice V.N. Sinha, and former judge Mridula Mishra in the final round, the Raipur team took home a cash prize of Rs 15,000. The KIIT team received Rs 10,000.