Supreme Court judges to return to ‘classroom’ in July

This is the first time the National Judicial Academy, launched three years ago, will have ‘‘students’’ from the bench of Supreme Court. Those who attend its refresher courses are normally members of the subordinate judiciary or at the most high court judges.

Justice Lahoti is believed to have initiated the move to call Supreme Court judges to a ‘‘retreat’’ on the incontestable premise that they too could do with a refresher course, especially on laws at the cutting edge.

The retreat will formally begin on the evening of July 5 when the judges will meet the ‘‘resource persons’’ (carefully chosen expert speakers) over dinner.

The serious business will take place over the next three days with a separate focus on each day:

• Governance and the law: to examine governance in the context of liberalisation and globalisation policies and to find solutions to the problems that may arise in the context of trade in legal services.

• Economy and the law: To look at economic policy changes in the framework of the Constitution, to assess the role of regulatory authorities, to gather comparative perspectives on commercial dispute settlement and to know the impact of the WTO regime on issues such as intellecual property rights and competition and fair trade laws.

• Science, technology and the law: To know the laws related to science and technology, to understand the nature and value of cyber evidence, to study trends in e-commerce and convergence technologies and to learn the application of technology to increase efficiency in the judicial system.

Several retired judges, such as Justice M N Venkatachaliah, Justice J S Verma, Justice A S Anand and Justice M Jaggannadha Rao, will be among the panelists.

The bulk of the lecturers will be legal academicians, economists, technocrats and other subject experts. They include Y V Reddy, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Bibek Debroy, Pratap Bhanu Mehta and T K Viswanathan.