ON December 4, 2024, The Leaflet will host a conversation between Justice Gautam Patel and Professor Upendra Baxi.The conversation will focus on several current issues, ranging from life and liberty, marriage equality, marital rape, the basic structure of the Indian Constitution, and the Sabarimala case.The wide-ranging discussion between a highly regarded retired constitutional court judge and perhaps India’s most pre-eminent legal academic alive will take a deep dive into the functioning of the Supreme Court of India.In particular, it will focus on the role of academics in the legal system.In his poem “The Theologian's Tale”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captured the nature of the relationship between two people while one of them awaits the other's answer to a marriage proposal.He described them, their situation and perhaps the human condition generally, in nautical terms (Master of the Rolls speech: Hamburg lecture— 9 July 9, 2012).For him they were,“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”For a long time, this happened to be the case in India, the two ships— academia and the legal system— oft passed each other in the dark and spoke only with a look and a voice. Lord Roger of Earlsbury, a judge of the UK Supreme Court, writing in the University of Queensland Law Journal notes that this is not usually the case.Often, constitutional courts grapple with challenging legal questions that judges may not be best equipped to answer: their training is in deciding issues, not in theorising and conceptualising..Article 32: History and the Future.The interaction of these two skill sets has the potential of raising the bar of legal reasoning by several notches. Prof. Basheer’s iconic intervention in Novartis is a case in point, as is Prof. Amita Dhandha in Rajive Raturi versus Union of India.The Constitution of India allows the appointment of distinguished jurists as judges of constitutional courts but we are yet to make any such appointments. Involving jurists to assist courts in tackling complex legal issues can bring in a refreshing perspective.A core occupation of a law professor is to teach and push the frontiers of knowledge through research and scholarly engagements. But they have much more to offer provided the system gives them the right opportunities. Do India’s judiciary and the executive employ the expertise of law professors?The examples of their doing so are sporadic. Prof. Upendra Baxi, our guest of honour, has voluntarily intervened in matters of importance, compelling courts to take them up, including the famous Mathura rape case..For a long time, this happened to be the case in India, the two ships— academia and the legal system— oft passed each other in the dark and spoke only with a look and a voice..To view Baxi as merely a legal scholar would be a disservice to the multitudes that the man contains. He has mentored generations of lawyers, judges, academics and writers.The essay, “Teaching as Provocation” (1990) is an inspiration to several academics. Most importantly, teaching is, as he defines it in this piece, “[I]n the profoundest sense of the word, has always appeared to me to be sacrificial, a process in which the best articulation of personality is achieved in the least lasting form, a process in which the teacher herself is, as it were, fire at the altar of knowledge.”Despite being heavily theoretical, Baxi’s work is important because the language is imbued with passion, even outrage. For example, the open letter he co-wrote in the Mathura case was a passionate piece of writing that taught its readers about the larger context of patriarchal and caste-based oppression within which practices of adjudication and justice delivery operate but are seldom acknowledged..Experiments with truth, Part 4: Webinar on fact-finding— History, law and ethics.Over an uncharacteristically long and distinguished career, Baxi has managed to shape the future of Indian jurisprudence through not just writing but through the many, many of his students who went on to become distinguished lawyers, senior counsel and judges.This influence is acknowledged when Baxi is cited in repeated judgments of the court on a wide array of subjects: from labour law in Gujarat Mazdoor Sabha versus State of Gujarat to the independence of the judiciary in Somesh Chaurasia versus State of M.P.; from the difference between a fee and a tax in P.M. Ashwathanarayana Setty versus State of Karnataka to consumer liability in Indian Medical Association versus V.P. Shantha.Additionally, Baxi has made notable policy contributions in the context of what he calls ‘disorganised’ rather than ‘unorganised’ labour in his role as the chair of a committee on law reform, the government of India’s (first) National Commission for Unorganised Rural Labour, and as a member of the Second Gujarat Labour Law Review Committee.Baxi was also the chair of a committee on prisoners’ rights and duties, whose recommendations have been fully adopted by the Justice A.N. Mulla Committee on Indian prison reforms. .The wide-ranging discussion between a highly regarded retired constitutional court judge and perhaps India’s most pre-eminent legal academic alive will take a deep dive into the functioning of the Supreme Court of India..Baxi chaired a committee on nyaya panchayats, convened by the Union ministry of panchayati raj, and proposed a Nyaya Panchayat Bill after extensive consultations with Union ministries and state governments.Patel, as a judge, needs no introduction. Known for his eloquence, his erudition, and his no-nonsense attitude in court, to his landmark judgments on the information technology Rules in Kunal Kamra versus Union of India, the Syedna succession case and several others.This conversation between jurists across two generations discussing what the Constitution means to them in its seventy-fifth year and what the role of the citizenry, academics and the Bar will be in ensuring that the Constitution endures, is a must-attend for anyone interested in constitutional issues in India.
