 Good evening friends. Those who have been connected with Beyond Law CLC, webinar series, they would be knowing that we have been taking a wide spectrum of topics which would help to facilitate in the legal empowerment of the society in one way or the other. So we all understand that Advocate on Records examinations is not that all lawyers intend to take until or unless they intend to practice in the Supreme Court. But be that as it may, once who is a lawyer or a student of law would always understand, like to understand the nuances of Advocate on Record, what is the intent of that? What is the subtle distinction between what we say a lawyer advocate or an advocate on record? And what is the purpose behind it? That would be one of the layers out of the entire series, entire session of today, though the speaker Charumathur was an advocate on record. And if you want to Google around, we'll find there are a lot of sessions by Charumathur taking sessions on the aspects of Advocate on Record. So much so, she has been a mentor for large number of AORs, which can be bounced on the social media. So we thought that why not get the insights from a person who has a deep dive into it. And normally like we are taking sessions in the English and some in Hindi. Today there will be slight, they say twist in the tale of webinar telling. That would be in Hindi English. So the friends who are connected with us, and in this journey and this thing, they keep telling us to do something different. When we are taking the steps of that journey, we thought why not understand Advocate on Record. How do we crack it? Cracking of any examination has its own skills, skill sets and challenges. They say that all the labels know about exams and all the books of law. But what special skill sets do they need? If they get a good mentor, it's better. We also know that in 45 minutes and 1 hour, you won't be able to understand how to advocate on record. That you have to crack the papers. But as they say, well-began is half done. And today we feel that if we can actually have these saplings for tomorrow, they will be better trees if one can understand that. And they can always connect with that. And so we will just request Charumathumam to first give how she intends to take the session forward. Does she want to take it in the straight? The thing or she would like to split the session into some parts. So that they can understand the journey as they say, not legal journey as such, but understand the webinar part, how it will be split up and how can they go forward. At least in my office, everybody is quite excited. They may not take the exam of Advocate on Record as such as on today. But as they say, destiny destines, man proposes God disposes. You never know where one lands up. Before we go about to go live, I was talking to Charumathumam. I could understand that she has shuttled her professional journey from Rajasthan, Gujarat and to Supreme Court. And that itself shows the fascinating journey and the fascinating part of the life as it unfolds. Over to you ma'am. Thank you Vikas ji. Good evening everyone. First of all, thank you Vikas ji for giving me this opportunity. I am a long follower of Beyond Law CLC. It is doing a great service to the society and because of this pandemic, we have come very close to these webinars and lectures. So every cloud has a silver lining. I think the silver lining for this pandemic was continuous learning that all of us have undertaken. Now coming about to the AOR exam, this session I would like to split it into three parts. So first part I would like you to know because I understand not everybody might be aware with the structure of AOR exam. So I would like you to know the papers that are available and should know what all papers you have to write. Then in the allotted time, I would like to explain you how to prepare for each of the paper. And then I will try to share my own experience and the experience of the people we have entered recently. And they have cracked the AOR exam. In the last class, I took around 15 of them have cracked the AOR exam. And so I would just like to share some experience and some tips if you can say that. Now as you all know that Supreme Court is the apex court of this country. And as far as Supreme Court is concerned, the predecessor of the Supreme Court was the federal court. Now when the India became independent, then also federal court continued till we got the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court came into being. So before that, when the Supreme Court came into being the judges of the federal court were the ones who were taken as the judges of the Supreme Court. So at that time we were having the system of agents. So persons who were filing the cases in the court in the Supreme Court, they were known as the agents. So if you take out any old case, you will find ABC I slash B by DEM. So DEM was your agent instructed by I slash B come up with instructed by. So an agent whom we call now advocate on record. So Supreme Court continued with the Supreme Court rules which were formulated way beyond before our Constitution came into being. So Supreme Court rules 1950 and all those things that were there, we modified that. It was only 1966 or so when Justice P. B. Gajendra Ghatkar, he was the Chief Justice of India and he said that we need to have our own rules to govern our apex court. So that is how Supreme Court Advocate on Record Association came into being and the Supreme Court Advocate on Record rules 96 came into being. So how the rules come? So if you look at the Constitution, I find the article 145 of the Constitution, how the court will govern its business. So article 145 has the power as Supreme Court. The rules you made for that who can appear before them, who can plead before them and how many appeals were heard how will they sit and what combinations will happen. So it is under article 145 and the President gives it an extent that yes, the rules are true. So as far as Supreme Court is concerned, there were articles 145 of the Constitution. the constitution first of all we had supreme court rules 1966 and eventually they were modified to keep up with the time and the kind of cases that were coming to supreme court in 2013. Now the rules which are governing the supreme court procedure and the practices supreme court rules 2013. So now I would like to tell you that advocate on record exam is quite challenging exam. When I passed at that time the passing rate was barely 3% or 4% so here I passed there were around 20 or so avas were made but last year around 200 they have made and initially if you see there used to be just two or three avas per year that they were making there are only 3000 or so avas who are practicing in there. This includes this 3000 number is the total number of avas right from the avar code one to the last avar code which is given which is around 3000 or something. So you can understand that it is a prestigious exam. Now the question arises what is the need for avar? So if you pick up supreme court rules you can advocate on record is the only person who can act as well as plead before the supreme court. Now the reason for making advocate on record was that in supreme court you get matters from all over India. When all the matters are coming from India you require some person who will be answerable to court. So advocate on record is one person if you look at the rules that he should have an office in the radius of supreme court in the radius of 16 kilometers he should have a registered clerk and he is answerable to court. If there is any fees in the court then advocate on record is personally liable. So advocate on record is a responsibility position but I will say that few of us have maligned the profession by just signing the brief. So this is not a correct practice so you should be involved in the matter that you are conducting. Now coming on to the exam How to pass and what is the paper. So there are four papers first is your practice and procedure paper, second is your drafting paper, third is your professional ethics and advocacy paper and fourth is your leading cases paper. Now I will start with the first paper which is your practice and procedure. So practice and procedure before I start you must know there are the regulations regarding advocates on record examination. So before I start giving you details about the paper, I would just like to tell you what you have to do to pass it. You should be able to pass it. You should be able to aggregate all the papers in 60% and in each paper individually 50% and above. So there is a board of examiners which is constituted by three supreme court judges and the papers are set by either by the supreme court judges or super seniors, super designated seniors who set these papers and do it correctly. These are the people who check the papers, generally the seniors. So if your aggregate is not 60% and you get a chance to write in one paper, you can give it up to five times the exam and apart from that if you fail in eight times, then you cannot rewrite the exam. So these are the limitations that you should know. Now coming back to paper one which is your practice and procedure. As I was telling you if you look at the regulations for AOR exams which are given, just give me one minute. So they have given you the syllables for the examination. So for paper one, you need to know relevant provisions of the constitution of India. You need to know supreme court rules. You need to know provisions of CPC, principles of general clauses act, bit of court fees act. Now supreme court rules you should know supreme court matters. There are some matters which go only before the registrar. You need to know those matters also. Then you need to understand how to file a petition. Supreme court rules. But if you analyze past papers, you will realize that 40% of questions are asked about the jurisdiction of supreme court. So you must know your constitution as far as the jurisdiction of the supreme court is concerned. You must know that supreme court has got original jurisdiction. It has got appellate jurisdiction. It has got advisory jurisdiction. Then it takes references which it comes to the court. If there is a dispute between state and state or state versus union, the subject matter itself is for the constitutional interpretation of the federal structure right between the states and union or states and state, you will get all those disputes in supreme court. You should know that specifically if you look at the constitution, they say that water disputes between the two states, they should go to the water dispute strategy. This is an important thing that you should know. If you look at article 32 of the constitution, which Dr. Ambedkar said is the soul of the constitution because constitution gives you various fundamental rights. But if you don't have a remedy to enforce them, that is why article 32 is part of part three of the constitution. So you should understand that why it is important. You must know the various types of grids because there are many times questions have been asked about what are the types of grids. So I think all of you know about that. So what does it mean? Does it mean that the order of high court is final or you notice that there is another issue or the order of supreme court is final. So these are some of the issues which I can think of that you must know. After that, in the original jurisdiction, how do you challenge vice-president of president election petitions? How do you file a transfer petition? What can be a CDFIR transfer or just a case filed? Only those can be transferred. It is the place of residence of a person where they are residing. Only then cases can be transferred. So these are some of the issues which you ought to know. So a very important question came from the Supreme Court. President of India is asking for advice from you that you can deny it. So in fact, Supreme Court has held that yes, I can deny that I don't think this is a question worth advice. It is not worth it. It can be on a political plan that this matter is coming. So the Supreme Court can refuse to give the advice. And only if they find that this is a case worth hearing in open court, then Supreme Court has carved itself a jurisdiction which is not available anywhere that is a curative jurisdiction. So what are the grounds on which you can file the curative petition? What are the grounds on which the courts here, who are the judges who can hear? So for the curative petition, there are three senior most judges and two judges who heard it. But in one case, it happened that three senior most judges heard that matter and it was his curative. So fortunately, all the only three judges were there. They were still there and the curative was fine. So they only heard and they decided. So the matter came to the Supreme Court and it is for the want of the strength of the bench. The curative petition was not heard by the right number of judges. It should be heard by five. So again, the interpretation went to the provision of curative petition are required to hear. And if it so happens, he will be the same log. That is a fair adjudication on the same. So these are some of the aspects that people that you will find in paper one. I would like to close my name to the Supreme Court judges. What is important is to close the name of the Supreme Court judges when they are writing the judgment and it can just be order of the court. After this, there are many things that you must know in the Supreme Court rules if you file petition, because it is the work of AOR that all work should be done right. So the procedure of the Supreme Court, the format, how many copies should be there. Now as the format has changed in the Supreme Court, you have to use A4 size paper. And now e-filing has become very common in the Supreme Court in the post-pandemic. So questions have come up on how we should do e-filing. So one of my suggestions is that you should see your website of the Supreme Court very well. And if you are practicing in the Supreme Court, you must try and visit the Supreme Court registry to see the actual working of the Supreme Court. Now coming on to that, people who are actually practicing in the Supreme Court, they have cleared their exam in a go, because they are doing that every day. But there are people who have taken a break off, say a year to sit and study at home for to clear this examination. Like when I was doing it, my son was very young, so I took 2 months to prepare for his exam. But my husband was doing it 6 years ago, so he hardly took 10 days or so to prepare or less than 10 days. He was there appearing and doing these matters regularly. Now moving on to paper 2, which is your drafting paper. Now this is a very tricky paper. In this, you get half an hour to read the paper. And it is very important that when you read the paper, you will see what is going on. You don't start from the beginning that in the Supreme Court of India, you don't write a list of dates, don't write synopsis, don't write anything. They might ask you to just draft the question of long. You just do that. Many times they will ask you to just give a round or a prayer. So as far as drafting paper is concerned, you will have to draft very carefully. You will have to draft exactly what is asked. And most importantly, don't get stuck on one question because last time in the paper, this drafting paper question number 1, people wasted their hour and a half to understand what they have asked. So usually you will find a choice just move on to the next paper. So usually you will be asked to draft a selfie which can be civil or criminal or transfer petition. You can be asked to draft a repetition and you can also be asked to write draft civil appeal under this thing. Usually they are asking for IBC now, how to draft a civil petition. So these are some of the issues which I would like to tell you about. Now drafting the paper is very subjective because the person who is checking it, he might have a very different way of a drafting of A is very different from drafting of B and very different from drafting of C. So you should try to be concise and precise in this for the drafting. But let your creative juices flow when you go for drafting, but be very clear what you are writing and how to adjust your time. Now coming on to your paper 3 which is your ethics and advocacy. In this you have to look at the bar council of India rules, you have to look at the Advocates Act and you have to look at many cases that contain jurisdictions particularly with this conduct of lawyers. So as far as this is concerned, you do not have a typical outline of what you have to do. So this is a very open paper. So you should generally be aware of the fact that this is in this conduct, this can be a disciplinary procedure. Is this ethical or not? Like the question is that the age of the internet, everybody is advertising why are you putting this embargo on them. So they when their questions like this are asked, so no black and white answer can be asked, you have to give your reasoning. And such a question is often asked that you have an excuse and they tell you that they have murdered you, save me. So as a lawyer, what is your duty? Will you go and report that potential client to the police? Will you take that matter or will you not take the matter? What is the cab rank rule? You have to take whatever matter, you have to do it. Then there are cases that you have not done, if you know that brother has done this paper, tell me, I want to take the property from him. So what is your responsibility? Then there are contingent fees to be questioned. When you talk about third party litigation today, you talk about litigation funding, so what is the contingent outcome of a reputation or any matter, you can take contingent fees from it. So Supreme Court has recently given a list of few cases which you should read which are concerned with the misconduct of a lawyer. What are the disciplinary proceedings? How we should keep our profession a noble profession? How we should work upon to keep this profession as a noble profession as well as ensuring that the lowest-run person is the financials of that person are taken away. A lot of times the question has come that when you learn from a senior, then it is a tradition of a teacher. So should a senior give you a stipend or not? If a senior is working without a stipend, then is it morally and ethically right? Now thereafter we come to paper 4. Now paper 4 is your leading cases paper. Now this year the Supreme Court has given 64 cases which you should read. A question can be asked and it is not a straightforward question. Like how they have applied in the subsequent cases so you will have to read the cases. In this paper you get the Supreme Court reports which are available to you. But what I suggest is if you have not read them, read not read the headnotes at least, it is impossible for you to do this paper well. I do not want to scare you. The reading cases paper is one paper which you can crack easily. But at least you need to ensure that whatever questions you have about the leading cases you can answer. So my suggestion is that you should start reading the latest cases in that list. Like if you have a judgment on privacy of Putta Swami's judgment, you should read that at least the headnotes that what are the criteria, what is the dignity of a person. So you have to see which other judgments you have made. Likewise, you will have to see how to formulate that answer. It is very important that we write the answers in such a way that we have only 3 hours and we will not be able to answer the questions. So very often, as they have said in the Sharat Birdi Chanta case which says that in circumstantial evidence when we can convert a person, when his equity can be reduced. So they have laid down 4 or 5 principles in that. So you must know. If you have headnotes, but until you read them one by one, it will be very difficult. Likewise, if you look at 10th schedule of constitution where there are many cases and they are frequently asked. Because we are getting a lot of cases which deals with the 10th schedule of the constitution. Then there are cases which relate to the reservation in the professional courses as well as reservation in the employment. How do you go about those reservations? How will you do the reservation or how will you not do it? Can we increase from 50% reservation? If it goes up from 50%, then the reservation is valid. So you should know that the answer to the TH question is to go to Indira Swamiji and see. So this is my suggestion to you is that you at least glance through the headnotes. And if you are practicing one of the most important things is that when you read the leading cases you will get the vocabulary and the same vocabulary you can use in the drafting paper. So you make your own target that you have to read leading cases or at least one of the days or if it is too long you have to do it one by one. If you make your target then it will be very easy. Now coming on to some tips that I want to give to you the first and most important thing is this paper handwritten written by hand. And you know this example that after 5 years of your practice of registering as a working under an employer for one year you are entitled to write this paper. And within 5 years while working on the computer or giving you a dictation you have forgotten to write with your hand. 3 hours of writing with your hand should be very legible. That is the biggest thing. Papers are tough but what I have seen in my experience is people are suffering only because of the poor time management that they are not able to finish the paper. Our goal is to get only 60% marks and clear the exam. It hardly matters if you pass as the last candidate who has cleared the exam or you top the exam. Everybody is going to be called an advocate on your phone. These days when things are going on you will come to give interviews to see how you have studied So my first tip is to practice writing with your hand. I remember when I wrote my hands were hurting like hell. The people who talked to me they were swelling on their hands for writing. They couldn't write. And it is a continuous 4 days paper 1, 2, 3, 4. So we don't have the time to write for 12 hours. Practice writing with your hand. Take past papers and after writing try to read them on time. And don't read a question especially for drafting paper. Don't understand what to do. Move on to the next question. Attempt it and try to clear. So this is my broad guidelines to you regarding your AOA exams. Now because there are other questions I would like to take them if you want me to explain more in detail I can explain for the details. And just to add one more thing that for books there is this for practice and procedure Raju Ramchandran sir's book which is again by EBC called practice and procedure you can use that and there is no other way other than drafting how you can draft only by practicing writing those papers. Right? Ma'am like we were all talking what will you recommend for the purpose of even drafting the SLP etc what should be the key points to be taken note of. See if you see any paper of last year one very important thing I forgot to tell you is in the drafting paper there is a relevant section given below. More or less it comes in all the papers until and unless there is a general provision like if there was a question on the question of Hindu succession then they had given the relevant provision if you want to file a divorce petition then they have written it so you will use your language in the drafting paper if they have given the question which is given if they have seen all the dates you have to make a list of dates you have to give synopsis you have to write a question of law and you have to give a provision below suppose I am writing my marriage letter then what are the grounds that text will be provided to you of the provisions of the relevant provisions you have to make it if you have any case then you have to put the case in the ground but if you are not throwing then you have to check because they are arguing like we are law students sometimes we write the name of the case law don't make that mistake because it gives you a very negative impression but at least the name of the case is correct this is by Ashutosh she says list of books which we should refer to in some situations see for practice and procedure by Raju Ramchandran this is by B.R. Agarwalas it is known as so this is the only book which is available and which covers everything for practice and procedure this is the book available that you can use then you should always use the Bayer Act go through it of the Bayer Act of the Supreme Court rules 2013 if you have any questions you will get everything on this and apart from that we keep getting lectures on AOR exam preparation and even I am conducting course on this AOR exam preparation so you can have a look on that but for drafting there is no book as such which is available but what you have to do you have to practice for drafting and the next is list of cases which you suggested could you share it on the whatsapp group so you can share it with me I will share it in the group and otherwise also normally if I asked while drafting in SLP because normally boys would ask what should be taken into consideration while drafting the SLP itself in a normal course I am not saying see this is a very basic thing that we need to understand what is in SLP in SLP only the order passed by High Court which is an extraordinary jurisdiction will it interfere or not so when you draft SLP you have to write in the order you have to tell that Supreme Court will consider that because that is its extraordinary appellate jurisdiction of Supreme Court though it is not related with the session we will take one question what will be the distinction between article 136, 141 and 142 see article 136 as far as you are talking that is a special repetition so special repetition it will be covering see we don't have court of appeals like you will have in UK etc after High Court Supreme Court and 136 Supreme Court how does 136 work so when you come to Supreme Court 136 file a petition if Supreme Court thinks that this is the right thing then Supreme Court will notice the other party if you have to decide then court will grant a leave when Supreme Court leave is granted that means your petition will be appealed in Supreme Court and it will be decided then your doctrine of merger if you are talking about article 141 and 142 then article 141 it is the law of the land and 142 has to do complete justice between the party right so this is the distinction between the two so between doing complete justice between the parties under 142 till now we were giving this matrimonial or personal cases but the Supreme Court judgment Union of India vs Ashishya Garwali we have seen that they have used it even in the tax matters 142 which is a very rare they have used such of article 142 just as Amar Shah said we want to reduce the tendency and by one stroke of pen he has done away with almost 90,000 appeals so there are people who are critics and there are people who say this is a revolutionary way 90,000 appeals and your tendency is the same one is asking what is the book you have referred for ethics see there is no such book for ethics the Supreme Court rules there are some articles which they are saying that you should read in the market there are few books which are available but this is a very fluid paper earlier it used to be ethics and accountancy paper but since I think 2012 or 2014 they have done with the accountancy part of the paper so when there was accountancy there was a book that we used to refer for account but there is no such book for professional ethics there is a very old book by Mr. Alagiri Iyer if he gets it from somewhere sometimes so you can read it then when we talk about ethics there are justices about 7 limbs of justice we should know what they are like a justice of being fair to the other party in that in the Supreme Court you will see the rules that will give you duty towards client duty towards the opponent so these are something which you will get majorly from the bar council of India apart from that if you are contempt against lawyer or contempt by lawyer then take the latest case of Prashant Bhushan you will be very clear where is the misconduct there is an old case from Maharashtra where in the trial court people just start scattering or just jump from the litigant snatch his file and his paper were teared or he will have that case and ultimately the matter came before the supreme court and supreme court gave a long dicta that this should not be done this is a misconduct then you should also know that supreme bar council of India rules how to initiate against against and advocate when bar council of states bar council of India comes so these are some of the things which you must know Nitin says could you repeat the name besides which other book you had referred there are no judgments there are some articles there are some materials by senior advocate senior advocate Mr. Venkata Ramani he gave some articles to read for professional so you can read them and essentially it is more of the judgments that you will read more of the bar council of India rules so when you do that there are many things which are clear it says what is the distinction between AOR, advocate and senior advocate see advocates are all the same because we are advocates in 1961 senior advocate is a designation which gives you a quote where AOR or advocate on record you will get its definition in supreme court that person who passes this exam gets certificate from supreme court but to practice in supreme court it is only advocate on record who can act as well as plead as a first day lawyer I can argue but to become AOR 4 years after my enrolment after that 1 year training AOR certificate of commencement certificate of completion we have to get it done after that you are eligible yeah I will just check it on the youtube whether we have any questions is there any validity for this certificate of the AOR it is good for time being to come until unless you become a judge yeah so thank you friends for staying connected with us and on the next weekend we will do something on the week days we have 2 interesting sessions coming one would be a senior advocate from he would be taking as the criminal trials with specific inputs on evidence act how you have to do the evidence and on sunday we would be having one session with justice who would be explaining the difference between section 319 and 391 of CRPC and how to use that thank you everyone stay blessed have a happy weekend thank you