Preparing for Law (Main)

I am grateful to Cyril for his inputs on the post.

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The syllabus for the law (main) is huge and it does require great deal of effort to cover the entire syllabus. Gone are the days when one could cover 75-80% of the syllabus and still secure decent marks. One may keep following points in minds while preparing and answering the law paper:

I. Study Materials

1. Standard Text Books:

I referred to following materials in the course of my preparation:

Constitution: V.N.Shukla (For Admin Law portion refer to S.P.Sathe/articles from journals)
International Law: Starke (for contemporary topics like terrorism which are not mentioned in Starke you can refer also refer to S.K. Kapoor as a supplementary text)
Law of Crimes: Gaur
Contract-Avatar Singh
Torts-Bangia
Recent Legal Developments- Internet and various legal journals like JILI, Supreme Court Journal, etc.

Reading aforementioned books is necessary but not sufficient. These books will not cover the entire syllabus and therefore, you might need to look at other books/articles as well to cover the areas not covered in these books. However, read them well to get the conceptual clarity.

2. Extra Materials:

Constitution

• Constitutionalism: Refer to M.P. Jain and also pub ad material on the same (Mohanty’s printed material has a page or two on constitutionalism)
• PIL; Legal Aid; Legal Services Authority: For PIL refer to the posts on the blog www.lawandotherthings.blogspot.com. For Legal Aid and Legal Services Authority refer to the website of the National Legal Service Authority and also relevant pages from the India Year Book.
• Eminent domain – State property – common property – community property. (V.N.Shukla has a page on eminent domain. Could not find material on State, Common and Community property.)
• Legislative powers, privileges and immunities. Refer to M.P. Jain for detailed analysis of this topic and also read the SC judgment in Raja Ram Pal v The Hon''Ble Speaker, Lok Sabha dated January 10, 2007
• Principles of natural justice – Emerging trends and judicial approach, Delegated legislation and its constitutionality, Judicial review of administrative action: Refer to Sathe on Administrative law. Also look for the relevant articles from JILI, Supreme Court Journal etc.
• Separation of powers and constitutional governance: Read articles from the net.
• Ombudsman: Lokayukta, Lokpal etc.: Refer to the relevant report of the Second Administrative Reform Commission.


- Please read the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution’s Report (Available on Ministry of Law’s website), the Annual Report of the Supreme Court (Available on the SC’s Website) reports of the Standing Committee of the Parliament on the Law and Justice (Contents of some of which might be available in newspapers and magazines), Law Commission of India’s Report-101, 195, 214 etc.

- Read the complete judgment delivered in some of the landmark cases (Maneka Gandhi, Express Newspaper Ltd, R. Rajgopal, Santosh Bariyar, S.R. Bommai, Raja Ram Pal etc. etc.) You do not have to read all the individual judgments. Just read one of the majority judgments and the head notes for the case.

International Law

In addition to Starke also relied on readings (which were compilation of some excellent articles) from the college days. Some of which are as follows:

• The Identity of International Law: Rosalyn Higgins
• Recognition in Theory and Practice: Ian Brownlie
• Recognition of States, Int’l and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 41, p.473
• Status of Treaties in Domestic Legal Systems: John H. Jackson, The American Journal of International Law, Vol.86, p.310.
• India’s Policy of Recognition of States and Governments: K.P.Mishra, The American Journal of International Law, Vol.55, p.398.
• Int’l Law and the use of force by States: Ian Brownlie, OUP
• The Right of States to Use Armed Forces: Oscar Schachter, Michigan Law Review, Vol.82, Nos. 5 & 6, April/May 1984
• On Prohibition of Force and Self Defense . you can also look at the relevant pages (pp.108-121 and 661-678) from the book The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary, Ed; Bruno Simma, OUP, New York, 199.
• The Position of the Individual in International Law: Alexander Orkahelashvili, 31 California Western International Law Journal 241.


For topic mentioned below relied a lot on the information from the internet. Please go through the UN website very well to gather information about UN, its organs, reforms, terrorism etc. You can also look at website of the International Criminal Court, for latest developments and also have an idea of the latest issues surrounding some of these international bodies. For example, the question on the International Criminal Court asked in the 2009 Mains, was not entirely legal, but also pertained to the broad theme of international affairs, as very specific questions were asked on functioning of the court, the drawbacks and the amendments to the Regulations. Hence questions are of a very contemporary nature for some of the topics for which the best source is the internet.

• United Nations: Its principal organs, powers, functions and reform.
• Legality of the use of nuclear weapons; ban on testing of nuclear weapons; Nuclear – non proliferation treaty, CTBT. ( For Legality of the use of nuclear weapons, please read ICJ’s judgment in full)
• International terrorism, state sponsored terrorism, hijacking, international criminal court. (FOR ICC, I read two articles which were part of my college reading. Am unable to locate them now. Will put up their citation as soon as I find them)
• New international economic order and monetary law: WTO, TRIPS, GATT, IMF, World Bank.
• Protection and improvement of the human environment: International efforts.
• Fundamental principles of International Humanitarian Law: You can refer to the chapter in Malcolm Shaw.


Law of Crimes


• Kinds of punishment and emerging trends as to abolition of capital punishment: read the related posts on the blog www.lawandotherthings.blogspot.com.
• Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988: Read the Bare Act well.
• Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955 and subsequent legislative developments: Read the Bare Act well.
• Plea bargaining: Cr.P.C amendments incorporating the Plea bargaining provisions in India, Law Commission Report and one or two article on the same from the net.

- You may also have a look at the Law Commission’s 156th Report on the IPC.


Law of Torts

• False Imprisonment: Refer to the Winfield for this topic.
• Consumer Protection Act: Read the Bare Act well and also Bangia’s commentary.


Law of Contracts and Mercantile Law

• E-Contract: From internet.
• Insurance: Did not prepare.
• Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881: Did not prepare.
• Sale of Goods: Bare Act + DU Law Duggi (guide)
• Hire Purchase: Law Commission’s 168th report.
• Formation and dissolution of Partnership: Bare Act + DU Law Duggi (guide) + Law Commission’s 7th report.
• Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996: Bare Act + DU Law Duggi (guide)

- You may also have a look at the Law Commission’s Report on the Contract Act.


Contemporary Legal Developments

• Read mostly from the net. Look at Law Commission’s 200th Report on “Trial by Media”.
• For some of the topics like Competition, Intellectual Property Rights, Right to Information Act, you can refer to some of the important sections of the bare acts.
• Since some of the topics mention that the concepts/types/prospects are being tested, you should be familiar with some of the important concepts, for eg. Polluter pays in environmental law.


II. Studying for the Main


Why it makes sense to cover the entire syllabus

• You must aim to cover almost everything mentioned in the syllabus. UPSC is not sticking to the broad area wise division while clubbing two or more questions into one. For example: There could be three questions of 20 marks each from topics as varied as Plea Bargaining, Negotiable Instruments Act and the Competition Act. The 60 markers in paper II are not single question but always an unusual combination of 2 or 3 questions from IPC/Contract/Recent Legal Developments etc. This makes life very tough because if you don’t prepare for everything, it is likely that you might not be able to answer every part of the question. For example, if you decide to skip negotiable instruments act and sale of goods act, it might just happen that the questions from these areas are asked not as part of a single question but in combination with other areas (say contract/recent legal developments). This can land you in trouble because with your selective preparation you can answer only part of a question and this could happen for more than one question.

• It is unusual on the part of the UPSC to repeat the last year questions the very next year. But it did so for the main 2009. Many of us did not prepare for the topics from which questions had already been asked in the main 2008 (For example indemnity and guarantee, IT Laws etc.). However, to our complete surprise UPSC repeated the questions from these topics in the main 2009 as well. This was surprising considering there were several recently added topics in the syllabus from where they could have asked the questions.

• Preparing an area comprehensively is no guarantee that one would be able to answer all possible questions from that area. In paper I, you might focus more on constitutional law/international law depending on your area of interest but I would still advice you to cover the entire syllabus of both. You might have a genuine interest in the constitutional law and might have studied hard for it, but that is no guarantee that you would be able to answer all the questions. For instance, I prepared well for the constitutional law but in the exam except for the compulsory question, I just answered only 1 question from the constitutional law as opposed to my earlier plan of answering 2 questions from there and 1 from the IL. I would have been in real trouble had I not prepared reasonably well for the IL as well.



III Writing the Main Paper:

Always see yourself as the salesman (of your answers) who is out there to satisfy the toughest customer (i.e. the examiner). Your answers have to be different from the rest and you will have to walk the extra mile to get extra marks from the examiner. You may keep following things in mind while writing the answer:

• Cases and Statutory provisions are a must and you must write them wherever needed. However, you answer should not look like a compilation of case list. Write only the landmark ones and write them in BLOCK CAPITAL so that it does not escape the examiner’s eyes.

• Quote wisely from the Commission/Committee’s (esp. law commission) reports and underline them. For example in the main 2009 there was a question on the fundamental duties. In my answer I mentioned very briefly the recommendations of

Swarn Singh Committee;
The National Commission to review the working of the Constitution; (“NCRW”)
Justice Verma Committee on opertionalisation of Fundamental duties.


• Wherever possible refer to the practices in other legal system (especially that of U.S and U.K.) and show the differences/similarity between them and us

• Write in points for the question which has several parts to it and for every part you have plenty to write. For example the question on recognition and succession last year has many parts to it. I wrote the entire question in points. Remember the Golden rule: write in points whenever you are running short of time.

• Keep yourself updated and mention the recent significant judgments/pending amendment bills etc. etc. in your answer. The Hindu’s legal reporting is quite good and also keep going back to the blog “Law and other Things” for the recent legal developments. Frontline also covers articles on recent level developments, especially those by V.Venkatesan. For example, if there were to be a question on trial by media last year, I would have definitely quoted SC’s judgment in the case of R.K. Anand (NDTV Sting operation) that came just before the main last year.