NLU Jodhpur speaker Prianka Mohan said that the final round result was surprising. “We honestly didn’t expect a tie. It was a well-balanced out finals. We thought that the other side had done a little better. Ironically, we had also faced them in the first round of the moot.”

However, NLU Jodhpur was later declared the ultimate victor after moot organisers used the memorandum scores as a tie-breaker. This lets NLU J start its MPL season with a bang earning 15 points from this tier 4 National Challenger moot.

Christ University also put up an equally impressive show earning a total of 16 points as it finished as runner-up in the moot and its speaker Kishore Kumar took home the best speaker award.

[[GLC Mumbai]] continued its good start to this season’s MPL, bagging 8 points for the best memorandum award.

[[Symbiosis Law School, Pune]] and [[KLE Bangalore]] finished as semi-finalists in the moot.

The problem was based on arbitration and infrastructure law and was hosted by [[NLU Delhi]] and organised by Kaden Boriss, National University of Singapore and Singapore International Arbitration Centre.

The NLU Jodhpur team consisted of speakers Prianka Mohan and Shreya Munoth along with researcher Alokita Basu.

Mohan told Legally India that she appreciated the quality of judging. “It was a very well organised Indian arbitration moot. The judges in the final round were very impressive and were well informed about the intricacies of the problem.

“They were not just people who were big names in every field, but they were experts in particular areas of law which the problem dealt with. One of the judges in semi-final round was extremely knowledgeable in Investment law.”

NLU Delhi moot court committee convenor Devna Arora said that the competition was very exciting and competitive. “Around 19 teams participated in the initial memorandum elimination round, out of which 16 teams were selected to participate in the oral rounds. The judges for the final rounds included Prof Jean Ho from NUS, Justice Sikri and senior advocate AK Ganguli.” [correction: the earlier version of this article erroneously referenced Justice Ganguly]

The Tier 5 international Maritime Moot which took place in early July this year is being considered with retrospectively, which makes it the first moot of Season 3 of the MPL. NLSIU Bangalore picked up the best overall memorandum and honourable mention for best respondent memo, giving it 12 points in the MPL 3.

[[MPL 3 Season Standings]]

*The Maritime Moot which took place in early July this year is being considered with retrospectively, which makes it the first moot of Season 3 of the MPL.

Further proposed changes

Changelog version 3.03 of the [[Mooting Premier League 2011-12 moot court competitions|MPL 3 competitions]]:

Frozen: The Oxford Media International moot rounds are now confirmed as a Tier 2 World Class moot. However, as a compromise, Oxford Media National qualifiers will remain in the National Challenger Tier 4 because it is still very new and similar to other moots in that tier such as NLS Arbitration, NUJS Herbert Smith, GIMC and KK Luthra.

The NLIU Juriscorp moot has been promoted to Tier 4 National Challengers, due to its popularity, quality in participation and judging.

Team MPL has also all but decided to promote DM Harish to World Class Tier 2 status because of its popularity as India’s best international moot and other factors such as excellent judging, quality participation, age and consistency.

BCI and qualifiers: There were suggestions to incorporate a separate lower tier for the North/South regional qualifying rounds for Jessup and Stetson, which were in the same tier as the BCI moot. Though there are good arguments that BCI has wider participation without a North/South split as the other Tier 3 qualifier moots, we also noted that most law schools send their best teams for Jessup/Stetson qualifiers and demoting those moots would not be wise.

There were also comments suggesting that if DMH were promoted, then other moots such as the BCI ought to be promoted. Though BCI is definitely India’s most popular national moot it didn’t see any international participation last year though the organisers intended an international presence and it therefore does not (yet) belong in the World Class tier. Also, judging quality at the BCI has been a little inconsistent recently.

Revolutionary new MPL points for organisers: We are also strongly mulling the idea of awarding points to law schools that organise moots. Such law schools are disadvantaged because that they lose the opportunity to score points in the moots which they host, thereby allowing other law schools to gain points. There are many moots which are hosted/organised by law schools, such as GLC Mumbai’s DM Harish and Nani Palkhiwala, Amity’s moot, GNLU’s GIMC, NLU Delhi’s IICLAM, NLSIU’s NLS Arbitration moot, the NUJS Herbert Smith, NLIU Bhopal Juriscorp, the HNLU Moot and many others where the hosting college misses out on winning MPL points.

We would therefore propose to automatically award MPL points to organising colleges equal to half the points awarded to semi-finalist teams in that moot, with figures rounded down. E.g.: a college organising a tier 5 moot would get 1 point; tier 4 organisers would get 2 points; tier 3 organising colleges (none at present) would also get 2; and tier 2 organisers would get 7 MPL points (only GLC Mumbai for DM Harish at present).

This recognises the contribution each moot makes to Indian mooting but first and foremost it redresses the effective penalty on colleges that organise top tier moots.

Team MPL welcomes your suggestions in the Moot discussion Legallypedia page and in the comments.