Moot Proposition The First Nluj NHRC Moot Competition 2023-0-1693898928
Moot Proposition The First Nluj NHRC Moot Competition 2023-0-1693898928
MOOT PROPOSITION
1. The Union of Marwar was famous for its rich traditions and heritage. After years of
2. Mr. Antonius Pius was an engineer who was better known for courageous investigative
journalism. He had uncovered a lot of scams and was responsible for bringing a lot of
wrong doers to the doors of justice. During one such instance in the year 2009, his ways
crossed with some important figures of the power corridors, which led to his exit from the
3. ZouTube was a new and raging phenomenon at that time, where one could open a channel
and upload videos which could be seen by the public at large. Mr. Antonius Pius continued
his investigative journalism and started uploading videos on his ZouTube channel. Very
soon, his followers and views boomed and it became a widely followed channel.
4. ZouTube was controlled by Akshar Pvt Ltd (“Akshar”) a company incorporated under
the laws of Marwar. The said company also controlled other platforms like Doodle, Ginsta,
5. All these platforms required a person to sign-up for access, and while such sign-up was
free, however without a sign-up access was not possible to any of these platforms. Sign-
up was a onetime affair which required an Aadhar based One-time Password (“OTP”)
login mapped to a device by its Media Access Control (“MAC”) identity. As soon as device
was changed, one had to do a fresh sign-up. To avoid any misuse, intelligent artificial
intelligence (“AI”) based mechanisms were in place to stop people from allowing anyone
6. Promoters of Akshar were part of the Jagatseth family, one of the richest families in
Marwar. The said promoters had always believed in professional management of their
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7. The ownership of these platforms was through layers of subsidiaries, where each of these
platforms was directly owned by a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and
the shares of these seven companies were parked in a Trust registered in Marwar, and all
8. The 2011 edition of Rhyme Magazine named Akshar as the company of the year, and
labelled its platforms as ‘Internet-Giants’ which have greatly impacted the human
Writter were market leaders in their individual segments with over 95%-98% market share.
9. In 2012, Mr. Antonius Pius was offered a job by Mandore Telecom Nigam Limited, a
In January 2013, Akshar launched a new internet service called Airfone, which offered free
gigabit speed internet for a year to all its subscribers who had to pay a one-time yearly
subscription fee of 49 Marwar Rupees. This led to the tumbling of share prices of its
competitors and also impacted the proposed roll-out of similar services by the Mandore
10. Mr. Antonius Pius did a story in February 2013 on the free gigabit internet offer of Airfone
and its effect on its competitors, and uploaded on his ZouTube channel. The substance of
his story was how certain employees of Akshar had withdrawn huge amounts of cash and
about the same time, the roll-out of 4G services by State telecom companies like Mandore
Telecom Nigam Limited was deferred. While the story did not connect these two aspects
in any manner, it went viral and the rumour mill was rife about how bribes have been paid
to defer the said rollout, with several other Zoutube channels speculating about these
aspects. One of the notable channels was of Mr. Kavish Kumar who was known for his
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11. As it hurt the image of Akshar, it filed a criminal complaint in December 2013 for
Defamation and Extortion against Mandore Telecom Nigam Limited and Mr. Antonius
12. On its part, Mandore Telecom Nigam Limited suspended Mr. Antonius Pius, and also
started a disciplinary inquiry against him, labelling his video on Akshar as an act of
misconduct and insubordination, and a show cause notice was issued in May 2015, and a
chargesheet was issued in December 2015. Awaiting the outcome of pending Trial, the
disciplinary proceedings were kept on hold but suspension of Mr. Antonius Pius was not
revoked.
13. In a very curious turn of events, Mr. Antonius Pius found that his access to Zoutube,
Doodle, Ginsta, BookTime, Inkedin, Howapp, and Writter was limited by Akshar. Mr.
Antonius Pius was neither able to do any internet searches on Doodle, nor could he
share/upload his images or videos on Zoutube, Ginsta, BookTime, Inkedin, Howapp, and
Writter. On Writter and Howapp, he could send/share text messages but could not
share/upload any photos or videos. His participation in Howapp groups was limited to a
read-only mode, where he could not even send text messages in groups on Howapp.
Likewise, he was unable to update his professional profile on Inkedin, and a banner with
bold red “suspended employee” was shown on his Inkedin and BookTime profile. He also
found that portions of his private data were leaked on the internet. Such leaks included his
search queries, sites he browsed, Zoutube, Ginsta and other activity, location history, and
purchases made online. It also contained some parts of offline conversations he had, which
14. Mr. Antonius Pius filed a writ petition in May 2016 before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of
Marwar (“the Court”). In his writ petition, he prayed for his suspension by Mandore
Telecom Nigam Limited to be set aside, as well as directions to the Union of Marwar to
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regulate the functioning of the Internet-giants. In his writ, he claimed that given the wide
and pervasive use by humankind of platforms like Zoutube, Ginsta, BookTime, Inkedin,
Howapp, and Writter; the Court must declare them as performing a public-duty,
whereunder they must comply with Part III and other rights enshrined under the
Constitution of Marwar and proscribe them from arbitrarily suspending access. He further
sought a declaration that in present times, it is difficult to imagine life without the use of
one or the other of these platforms, and these platforms have grown so big that they have
billions of users, and hence there must be an independent third party body that must
oversee the functioning of these portals to stop monopolistic abuse, and such body must
decide the policies under which these platforms can deny access to any individual or access
the private data of any user. He further prayed that the proposed body must also formulate
and dynamically review the terms-of-use as laid down by these platforms. He also sought
15. Finding that the matter involved determination of substantial questions affecting a large
number of persons, the Court decided to issue notice to Union of Marwar. Mandore
Telecom Nigam Limited, and Akshar were also issued notice. The Court refused to grant
any interim relief. Service to all respondents, and completion of pleadings took some time,
16. During trial, Mr. Kavish Kumar did not support the prosecution’s version and was
declared hostile, and on this ground giving benefit of doubt to Mr. Antonius Pius and
December 2022. No appeal was filed thereagainst, and the matter attained finality.
17. Basis his acquittal, Mr. Antonius Pius made a representation through proper channel for
the disciplinary proceedings to be dropped. However, the said prayer was not acceded to,
and in the disciplinary proceedings, Mr. Antonius Pius was not given any benefit of the
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acquittal in criminal case, citing his acquittal to be on technical grounds, and not being an
honorable acquittal.
18. Mr. Antonius Pius was permitted to amend his pending writ petition, to bring these
additional grounds to the effect that under criminal jurisprudence and the substantive and
procedural criminal laws, there are no defined categories of acquittal known to a trial court
to enable it to categorize the acquittal as honorable or technical. Claiming that the term
honorable acquittal slipped into criminal jurisprudence from martial law entirely by
accident, he further prayed that service laws cannot permit bureaucrats and similarly placed
honorable or technical, as a trial is about adducing proof of guilt by prosecution, and not
right to be always presumed innocent until proven guilty, and innocence is an absolute
concept and there are no shades of innocence under the laws of evidence and
criminal/penal codes. If service laws are allowed to permit such adjudication ex-post a
trial, then it will be akin to executive adjudicating over a judicial verdict, which will violate
the doctrine of separation of powers. At the same time, an accused who has been acquitted
does not have any chance of appeal, to seek a correction from a technical acquittal to be
converted to honorable acquittal, which revolts against the canons of fair-trial and
19. These amendments were allowed, and finding that the matter involves an interpretation of
the Constitutional provisions, the Court directed for the matters to be heard by a
issues, inter-alia:
I. On internet giants:
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covenants/conventions?
***
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Notes:
1. All references are fictional. The legal system and legal history of India, applies mutatis mutandis
to Marwar, with all its laws (including subordinate legislation), international obligations and
judgments. For the sake of argument, please assume Doodle is equivalent to Google, Ginsta
as Twitter or X; and Central CCS-CCA Rules as available on dopt.gov.in, are deemed to apply
2. Participants stand advised to devise a ‘litigation strategy’. The issues can be argued in the
3. Any citations, without actual para/page references, will invite negative marking.
Unnecessary citations and passim references are to be avoided. In case of oral arguments,
primary references for all case-laws being referred to is mandatory and no participant will be
allowed to cite a case-law from secondary sources like text-books or commentaries. Primary
reference may be made to select treatises which are treated as authorities in their own right.