FEBRUARY 08, 2022

By Adv. M G Kodandaram, IRS

I remember forever and treat it to be a privilege for having been in the company of two great RISHIS (Saints) on this Planet. One soul helped me in realizing my natural capabilities to trek in the vast Himalayan Mountains to reach the physical heights and accomplish a profound sense of confidence and satisfaction. The other inspired me to attain a deeper understanding of the philosophy of legal laws, legal education, and their utility in building a good civil society. Both events motivated me in making positive contributions in improving the society and its environment. The meaningful time I spent with them helped me to realize my inner strengths and to carry out my duties towards the Society with confidence, courage, and conviction. The very association with the legends has have brought changes in my life and it continues to contribute, inspire, and guide me at every stage, encouraging me to serve the people.

The frequent and close association with Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach the heights of Gowri Shanakara [Mount Everest], during 1980 to 1990, getting opportunity to be part of the Himalayan Adventure Trust (HAT) founded by him, helped me in evolving my youthful days in a better way. Guiding the people in the Himalayan States for use of improvised cooking facility [smokeless chulas] to improve women's health and to lessen the adverse environmental impact impressed me immensely. The efforts to clean the garbage accumulated in the greater heights of the Himalayan camps under the great leadership of Hillary earned immense satisfaction.

But later in life, circa mid 90s and later, when I met Professor Dr. N.R. Madhava Menon, at the NLSIU campus, I decided to be part of his mission as much as possible to learn the lessons of life. His active involvement in reforming the legal education impressed me a great deal. From there on my interactions with him was frequent. At every opportunity that came on my way, I took his valuable inputs regularly on legal education. My engagements in the official realm coupled with frequent transfers eluded me of the opportunity to be his regular student. As all in the legal and Academic fraternity would be aware of Dr. Neelakanta Ramakrishna Madhava Menon (4 May 1935 – 8 May 2019) as the father of modern legal education in India. He is the man who established the world-renowned law school of Bangalore, first of its kind in India for bestowing specialized legal education to the aspirants of law. It goes to his credit when one finds that the said institution has remained at the top in the ranking amongst similar educational institutions, year after year till date. This unique university ushered in a revolution in the Indian legal education and training. Other National Law Institutes and Universities in India owe a great deal for his contribution for strengthening legal education. To educate the judges he set up and served as the first director in the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal. As a mark of recognition to the great services he rendered to the Nation, he was awarded the  Padma Shri  in 2003 and  Padma Bhushan  in 2020 by the Indian Government. He was a member of the Law Commission of India and member of several expert Committees including on Legal Aid for many years. He envisioned a platform for law students that would make them be at par or better than those pursuing education of technical, medical and science streams. Through this article, I try to share his concerns and thoughts about legal education and importance of specialization in litigation by practitioners of streams of contemporary laws. He envisioned building a healthy civil society that was free from corruption and that had a huge impact on many like me. Here I have attempted to be more informal so that I can create a long-lasting impression in the minds of the followers of his mission and ideology.

The interactions with Menonji, after a long gap, started again when I got an invite for participation in the 'National Workshop on Environmental Law, Practice and Litigation', being conducted at NLSIU from 21 to 25 June 2013, under his stewardship. I literally was elated as I got the opportunity to be taught by the legendary person once again. The workshop was open only to law teachers and invited Resource Persons. It was a part of the continuing legal education programmes for lawyers and law teachers organized under the auspices of IBA Chair and Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training (MILAT). Even though I am a resident of Bangalore, I requested the college authorities to provide me accommodation at the college premises. My intention was to remain in the company of my guru for full five days and draw the required inspiration and energy. During this occasion, I thought of learning not only the principles of law, but also the ways to be followed for a fruitful living. For my prayers the college authorities responded in the positive, which enabled me an added opportunity of moving with the great soul in the evenings, seeking advice in an informal way. Here I should appreciate the support of my wife and parents, who concurred for my stay away for a week to be in the company of the luminary.

The lessons of life, more than the legal knowledge, I learnt during the above period I fail to express in literal mode. I participated actively in the sessions relating to 'Importance of Public Interest Advocacy in Environmental Litigations' as a part of training and after the sessions, moved with him attending to his needs which ran late into the evenings. This helped me in obtaining both the knowledge of law and practice of ethical values - qualities I'd cherish forever in my life.

During the same period an article penned by me titled "Protect Thyself" had been published in one of my departmental magazines, which I placed before him. He immediately went through the article and appreciated concerns expressed therein for protection of environment and the mother earth. This I feel to be a sublime start to the journey of legal writings by me as his words of appreciation encouraged and blessed me.

During the teaching at the training sessions, he emphatically declared that the Environmental Law Practice is an emerging area of specialization in the legal profession for which time has come. He further stated that 'Natural resources management, sustainable development, climate change and man-made disasters' are the key issues which confront policy makers both in the developed and developing worlds. 'The solutions have to be found consistently with human rights commitments and rule of law framework. 'Polluter pays principle', insurance and risk distribution are insufficient remedies for large scale tragedies awaiting to happen. The establishment of Green Tribunals, the prospects of Green Bar developing cannot be ruled out in the future. Lawyers and stakeholders will have to prepare themselves by acquiring knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to be in the leadership of environmental law wing of the profession'. These prophetic words of wisdom have come true today as the world is struck by the pandemic which is believed to be the result of environmental imbalance occurred due to ever-increasing human intervention in the natural ecology. The National and international environment law and legal frameworks have failed to prevent occurring of such calamity as they are not consciously implemented by the Governments world over. There is need of concentrated effort and conscious use of the PIL route, to contain the environmental disasters happening unabated.

As stated earlier he established the Judicial Academy to train the judges. He used to say that the role and functions of judges drawn from the structure and procedure of the judicial systems introduced by the British as a shadow of the English system that do not serve the required purpose of the present Indian democracy. He believed that the ideas of justice and judging should be informed by the native traditions and composite culture of India's 2500 years of pluralist history and not from the borrowed obsolete British legacy ¹. The judging in post-Constitution India must be inspired and guided by the constitutional values including the Directive Principles which are declared as fundamental in governance of the country, he contended. Therefore, he opined that the Judicial education and training, must be organized in such a way that the future judges imbibe the knowledge and sentiments of all strands of the judicial history and acquire the capacities to discharge judicial functions in a manner appropriate to changing conditions and demands.

In the article titled 'Shaping of Future Judges: Tasks, Challenges And Strategies ²', he writes, "The concept of 'Dharma' is variously interpreted not only to convey notions of justice and standards of behaviour, but also how 'neeti' and 'nyay' are to be administered by those in power. Judges are supposed to be free from bias and are themselves to be subjected to the rule of law and ethical conduct, much above that intended for ordinary men."

'Furthermore, with fundamental changes happening in science and technology, any institution of governance, including the judiciary, has necessarily to adopt them to manage affairs efficiently for the convenience of the consumers of justice. This is, indeed, the challenge before judicial educators who generally come from judicial ranks with a generally conservative outlook and obsession for precedents even when they are of colonial vintage. Therefore, judicial education should start with educating the educators or training the trainers with clear objectives on the outcomes and with an open mind on strategies, materials, and methods', he asserted and pursued this as a mission throughout his lifetime and till the last moments. As the social context keeps changing, the judicial education in this regard must be a continuing process designed to help every seeker of knowledge to grasp the changed context. In this regard he asked the law teachers to keep track of the dynamic developments happening in different streams of technology and the society and adapt the same in their learning and improve their contribution in the teaching profession.

He always felt and stated that there was lack of organized and institutionalized systems to offer proper continued legal education to over one million strong legal practitioners in the country. With inevitable dynamic changes in the economy and in technology, he felt that the days of the general law practitioners were over, and the way forward was / is to specialize and offer single-window services through reorganized efforts and in partnership with other professions and streams of knowledge. For this purpose, he advocated the setting up of continued legal education (CLE), which he established as the mechanism to ensure competent services in the legal profession everywhere. As per his vision the CLE is also a measure of accountability of the profession in terms of the quality of services and timely delivery.

I got another opportunity to be with Menon ji, when I got an invitation to participate in a Professional development training programme on the topic ' combating corruption and promoting good governance' . This training being hosted by the Vigilance & Anti-Corruption Bureau, Government of Kerala, and conducted under the leadership of Dr. Menonji, at Estuary Islands of Trivandrum during 7, 8, 9 October 2016. This made me happier as I could again be with him and interact for four full days. I made my preparation and left for Trivandrum a day in advance. In Trivandrum, my office colleagues arranged for a Darshan of the Ruling deity Anantha Padmanabha. Early in the evening of 6th October 2016, I reached the Estuary Island.

I got the opportunity to learn a lot about the developments in legal field from professor Menonji and other illustrious luminaries at the venue for the next four days. The training received here was extraordinary as it was full of practical cases studies and justifiable remedies. We had the presence of a great ISRO Scientist Dr. Shri. Nambi Narayanan, who was falsely charged and absolved in a spy case registered by Kerala police and the CBI officer [then retried], Shri. M. L. Sharma, IPS, who investigated the said case as trainers in the course. The entire programme was planned and supervised by reknowned Dr. Jacob Thomas, IPS, who then headed the Vigilance department of the State of Kerala.

In the evenings, our training sessions were shifted to the sands of the shore and the deliberations on combating corruption went up to late in the evenings and dinner. The memorable service rendered by Scientist Sri.Nambi Narayanji in space research as explained by Prof. Menon ji stood out as unique. Later in the meet, the Scientist himself revealed the circumstances under which the foreign space agencies used the corrupt police establishment to fabricate and register a criminal case against him, shook the conscious of every trainee. He further explained the scientific research and progress made in space technology by Indians in simple terms. It helped us to understand and appreciate the Indian scientists' achievement. It is unfortunate that such an honorable scientist was jailed on false charges of spying. Later, Shri. M. L. Sharma, IPS (then retired), explained in detail, (after being handed over the case to CBI by Kerala police) the way his team conducted a fair investigation of the entire matter. He observed that it is fabricated case made out only to harass the Scientists of India by a developed nation. The foreign hands had played their role to subvert the Indian progress in space research by exploiting the corrupt system that existed in the law enforcement establishment, he lamented.

In this event I got a wild card entry to present my paper titled, 'The Indian quest for effective and corruption free Goods and Services Tax .' In the said paper I deliberated the key digital processes and facility provided to the registered taxpayers through the Special purpose vehicle in the form of GST Network. This digital route eased the compliance mechanism in indirect tax realms without any scope for interference by the GST administration and this e-governance mechanism could eliminate corruption to a large extent . I explained in brief as to how all the compliances could be carried out voluntarily online by all taxpayers. After my presentation, Professor Menonji lauded the measure of the Government for taking bold steps to contain and to combat corruption. The positive observations made by him motivated and encouraged me to tread this guided path to serve the society with all humility.

In one of his introductory writings dated 1 st September 2012, he scribes a personal note which rightly captures his mission of life in brief which I reiterate for the benefit of our readers. "Finally, I must thank vice-chancellor, Prof. R Venkata Rao, for bringing me back to teaching and training after a break of more than a decade. In a modest way I have been working through my retirement on continued legal education under the aegis of Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training (MILAT) and occasionally of the Bar Council of India. Now with the institutionalized support of NLSIU and financial support of FORD Foundation, I am committed to see CLE gets its due status in professional development and is offered professionally in reputed legal education institutions around the country. This is my mission for the next three years under the IBA-CLE chair professorship. I am looking for the support of like-minded people in the legal profession and the academia so that capacities are developed, access to justice is enlarged and rule of law strengthened in quality of services. CLE is indeed the best mechanism available to ensure that."

According to Menonji, Education is a systematic instruction to develop capacities for rational thinking, acceptable behaviour and moral decision making. It is a continuous process of integrating knowledge with experience and moulding attitudes and conduct accordingly. I cherish to be the student of this great soul throughout my lifetime, pursue his set of principle and policies for spreading legal education in the society so as to further the cause of India becoming a better democracy.

[The author retired as Assistant Director (Retd), NACIN . The views expressed are strictly personal.]

¹N.R. Madhava Menon, Shaping of Future judges: Tasks, Challenges and Strategies, 1 J. NLUD,55, (2013)

² ibid