Staying Within the Law

Aaah, a good night’s sleep finally! I went to bed about 11:00 PM and woke up only a couple of times before finally getting out of bed at 7:00 AM. I count that as a solid and “normal” night’s sleep. I was able to do some reading in the morning and use the WiFi card that I was finally able to purchase (they’ve been promising me these WiFi access cards each morning and only just gave me a few yesterday) to go through some of the many emails that continue to pile up in Minnesota. Although still not as fast as I expected, it was significantly faster than the crawling Internet available at the Institute’s computer lab. Looks like I’ll have to spend more time trying to catch up on those emails. I found it fascinating that so much of the documentation in this country is still done in pen and paper. When I tried to buy the WiFi card, the guy at the reception pulled out a big green bound ledger and wrote down the details of the card and my room number in the series of columns. The ledger seems to have been pulled from the 1950s. This is in a new and modern hotel, but a lot of the accounts still seem to be done by hand.

I also got to speak with Sheila and Jay who had just arrived in Chennai. Both seemed happy and in great spirits. Sheila had to give me all the details of her business class travel on Jet Airways – sounds like she’s spoiled already.

This morning’s presentation on India’s legal system was from Mr. Shivakumar, a lawyer with a wealth of experience in a variety of areas. He was an absolutely outstanding speaker and kept the entire class enthralled. First, he kept the content of the presentation very basic. Given that most of the class knows nothing about the legal system, he didn’t get into much detail, but provided some very broad structure on the structure of the Indian legal system. Second, he kept the presentation interactive and provided brief, pertinent answers to the questions that were raised. Third, he was brutally honest about the strengths and weaknesses of the system and never appeared to be hedging or covering up. Finally, he seemed able to expand when needed to answer the questions that were raised without going off on a tangent. He answered a variety of questions that went well beyond just matters of law. The class was very impressed and delighted with his presentation.

Right after the class and the requisite coffee break, we headed to the Mysore District Courts to see justice in action. The background provided by Mr. Shivakumar helped in understanding where we were and where these District Courts stood in the overall Indian legal system.

We first walked into a courtroom and watched the proceedings that were conducted entirely in Kannada. While there is only so much time you can sit and watch a bunch of people talking in an unfamiliar language, it was interesting to see the infrastructure and process. The room was aging and somewhat decrepit (I should note that the Court buildings themselves were beautiful in terms of architecture on the outside). The court reporter smashed away rapidfire on an ancient typewriter. Rather than just recording everything verbatim, the court proceedings appeared to be summarized by the judge every few minutes who then dictated to this reporter. There is a long table in front of the judge’s stage where a bunch of advocates just seemed to be aimlessly sitting around. Advocates would wander in and out of this room sitting at the table for a while, scribbling on a few papers, and then leaving. It was all very exotic and interesting.

We later went into another courtroom which was not in session yet. One of the advocates came over and explained that the case to be heard was a recovery case where the debtor was claiming that he did not have to repay the full amount of his promissory notes (pro-notes). The advocate who spoke to us represented the creditor and even let us leaf through the legal documents. The documents and briefs are all in English even though all the court proceedings (in the lower courts) are conducted in Kannada. We watched the proceedings for longer than most of us would have liked. Still, there were one or two testy exchanges between the lawyers that held our interest.

I managed to squeeze in a couple of faux pas moments during our visit. When the judge walked in, he looked puzzled at this large group sitting here and asked what was going on. Someone explained that this was a group visiting from the SDM management institute. He asked where we were from and from my seat, I shouted out “We’re from the University of Minnesota in the USA.” A shocked looking advocate glared at me and signaled for me to stand up when talking to the judge, which I did immediately. In another court room which was not in session, I asked our guide if it would be okay to take photographs. When he said yes, I went ahead and seated myself in the dock and asked a student to take a picture. From the far end of the room, we heard some shouting and a guy was waving wildly telling us not to take any photographs. I quickly slunk out of the room and pretended I had nothing to do with the hullabaloo.

Al and I went exploring the market street (Devraj Urs Road) in the evening. We found a music store (of course) and then a book store. The most interesting thing I bought at the music store was a CD of the High School Musical 2 soundtrack in Hindi!

Al had a great time riding the auto rickshaw there and back. He had this huge grin on his face as he filmed the traffic zipping by, the sudden jerks as the auto tried to avoid the cows and dogs on the streets and the insane scooters and motorcycles weaving in and out of the traffic around us. While this seemed quite normal to me, he found it fascinating.

The students went out and had their own adventures, from shopping in the spice market to playing cricket with some street urchins.