Thank you:
Looking at the good response from my dear students to my article on "pursuing courses like CS and CA" and especially the willingness on the part of my friends and students to learn and appreciate good things, I have decided to write an article on another interesting area in the course of pursuing courses like Law, CS and CA.
The situation:
The students should study many laws and regulations as part of their syllabus and also they are told to study the judgments or latest judgments. Even there will be questions in their exams asking for a case reference or an answer to the question citing decided case-laws. As such, it is very very clear that the students will come a definite conclusion to read all the case-laws or the case-laws to the extent possible and they will try to remember those or memorize those cases.
While I am aware of the capabilities of my friends and my dear students who pursue courses like Law, CA and CS, I do feel that some of my friends study the judgments and try to memorize those without understanding the significance of those case-laws and as to why they need to study those. The study material issued by ICSI and ICAI deal with all these aspects and I want to re-emphasize as to the significance of studying the case-laws and how to deal with case-laws while students prepare for their exams.
The significance of judgments:
Firstly, students should know as to the significance of law and what is law
In simple words law is nothing but a command of sovereign and if we see the issue somewhat practical, then, law comprises:
a. The command of sovereign viz., law enacted by parliament, state assembly and the other authorized with delegated power.
b. The custom.
c. The precedents or the judgments of the constitutional courts having binding nature.
The students need not bother about custom as a law and they need to concentrate on the enactments and the judgments pronounced by the constitutional courts. The binding nature of the judgments is as follows:
i. The judgment delivered by the High Court will have binding nature on all the subordinate courts in the state. The judgment passed by one High Court may not bind another High Court, but, certainly, that another higher can consider the judgment of other High Courts and it is technically referred as judgments with persuasive value.
ii. The judgment of the
In both cases, the judgment will have reference to certain facts before it, the recording of submissions by the respective advocates, the reference to relevant rules and regulations and the most important thing is that the judgment may refer as to how a particular rule or regulation is to be understood or interpreted.
The finding of a constitutional court as to how a rule or regulation is to be understood is called ratio and it will have binding nature accordingly.
Thus, to understand as to how to understand a particular rule or regulation, we need to look at the judgments if any. If there is no judgment on any particular rule or law, then, we need to understand that rule or law grammatically and as it stands.
This is the basis behind reading the judgments of constitutional courts while studying some law, rule or regulation. There are many judgments as to what capital account transaction is and what current account transaction is. Likewise, there are judgments on winding-up, mergers, minutes, books of account etc.
Students should understand two situations while studying the judgments and those are as follows:
a. A rule or regulation upon which there tend to be many judgments.
b. A rule or regulation upon which there will be a landmark judgment.
Remembering the second category of judgment is very very important than the first category wherein the judgments tend to get overruled very frequently.
Thus, the need of studying the judgments is to understand what the law is; or how to understand a particular rule or regulation. Thus, studying judgments will help the students as to how to think and understand law.
What I feel is:
What I feel is that the students should look at what the court has said than remembering the case reference which will be like acd Vs.xyz (1996 SCC II 859 etc. Certainly, the students will be spending lot of time on remembering the cause title of a case rather concentrating what the court has said. It is not proper way of studying the judgments as I personally feel.
When I was a law student, I too have spent so much time on remembering the cause title with the intention that I need to write the case reference in exams to get marks. I know that many of my friends and students too do the same now and they need to have a re-think at their approach.
My tips:
My tips to students to study the judgments and my advice are as follows:
a. Students can spend time to remember the cause title/case reference if the case is a landmark case.
b. Students can just read the judgments to have an understanding where there are many judgments on an aspect like the judgments on definition of capital account transactions.
c. To attain real knowledge and understanding of the subject, the students should study as to what the court has said and the reason assigned for giving a judgment.
d. Dont be afraid of looking at many judgments as contained in your study material and proceed with studying the subject logically and with proper planning.
Note:
My intention is not to say to students that they should not remember the case reference or cause title, but, to express my opinion or advice to students to make it easy and to get the real knowledge while they pursue their Law, CA or CS.
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