List of practice Questions

The right to self-determination and bodily integrity has been recognised by the Supreme Court of India. The right to execute an Advance Medical Directive is nothing but a step towards protection of the aforesaid right by an individual, in event he becomes incompetent to take an informed decision, in particular stage of life. It has to be recognised by all including the States that a person has right to execute an Advance Medical Directive to be utilised to know his decision regarding manner and extent of medical treatment given to his body, in case he is incapacitated to take an informed decision. Such right by an individual does not depend on any recognition or legislation by a State and we are of the considered opinion that such rights can be exercised by an individual in recognition and in affirmation of his right of bodily integrity and self-determination which are duly protected under Article 21 of the Constitution. The procedure and manner of such expression of such right is a question which needs to be addressed to protect the vulnerable, infirm and old from any misuse. It is the duty of the State to protect its subjects specially those who are infirm, old and need medical care. The duty of doctor to extend medical care to the patients, who come to them in no manner diminishes in any manner by recognition of concept that an individual is entitled to execute an Advance Medical Directive. The physicians and medical practitioners treating a person, who is incompetent to express an informed decision have to act in a manner so as to give effect to the express wishes of an individual.

The Supreme Court of India has held that it is a cardinal principle of the law of contract that the offer and acceptance of an offer must be absolute. It can give no room for doubt. The offer and acceptance must be based or founded on three components, that is, certainty, commitment and communication. However, when the acceptor puts in a new condition while accepting the contract already signed by the proposer, the contract is not complete until the proposer accepts that condition, as held by the Court in Haridwar Singh v. Bagun Sumbrui, [AIR 1972 SC 1242]. An acceptance with a variation is no acceptance. It is, in effect and substance, simply a counter proposal which must be accepted fully by the original proposer, before a contract is made.

There is a general presumption that every Hindu family is presumed to be joint unless the contrary is proved. It is open even if one coparcener has separated, to the non -separating members to remain joint and to enjoy as members of a joint family. The protection of rights of daughters as coparcener is envisaged in the substituted Section 6 of Hindu Succession Act, 1956 recognises the partition brought about by a decree of a court or effected by a registered instrument. A special definition of partition has been carved out in the Explanation. The intendment of the provisions is not to jeopardise the interest of the daughter and to take care of sham or frivolous transaction set up in defence unjustly to deprive the daughter of her right as coparcener and prevent nullifying the benefit flowing from the provisions as substituted. The intendment of Section 6 of the Act is only to accept the genuine partitions that might have taken place under the prevailing law, and are not set up as a false defence and only oral ipse dixit is to be rejected outrightly. It has to be remembered that the courts cannot defeat the object of the beneficial provisions made by the Amendment Act. The exception is carved out by us as earlier execution of a registered document for partition was not necessary, and the court was rarely approached for the sake of family prestige. The statutory fiction of partition created by the proviso to Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 as originally enacted did not bring about the actual partition or disruption of coparcenary. The fiction was only for the purpose of ascertaining share of deceased coparcener when he was survived by a female heir, of Class I as specified in the Schedule to the 1956 Act or male relative of such female. The provisions of the substituted Section 6 are required to be given full effect.

The Supreme Court of India, in Sangitaben Shaileshbhai Datanta v. State of Gujarat, [2018 SCC OnLine SC 2300] was examining a question where a court, after grant of bail to an accused, ordered the accused and their relatives to undergo scientific test viz. lie detector, brain mapping and narco-analysis. This Court held that direction of the court to carry out such tests is not only in contravention to the first principles of criminal law jurisprudence but also violates statutory requirements. The Court held: “While adjudicating a bail application, Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 is the guiding principle wherein Court takes into consideration, inter alia, the gravity of the crime, the character of the evidence, position and status of the accused with reference to the victim and witnesses, the likelihood of the accused fleeing from justice and repeating the offence, the possibility of his tampering with the witnesses and obstructing the course of justice and such other grounds. Each criminal case presents its own peculiar factual matrix, and therefore, certain grounds peculiar to a particular case may have to be taken into account by the court. However, the court has to only opine as to whether there is prima facie case against the accused. The court must not undertake meticulous examination of the evidence collected by the police, or rather order specific tests as done in the present case. In the instant case, by ordering the abovementioned tests, the High Court has converted the adjudication of a bail matter to that of a mini-trial indeed.”

We may note that even though rights in land are no more a fundamental right, still it remains a constitutional right under Article 300A of the Constitution of India, and the provisions of any Act seeking to divest any person from the rights in property have to be strictly followed. The right to property ceased to be a fundamental right; however, it continued to be a human right in a welfare State, and a Constitutional right under Article 300A of the Constitution. Article 300A provides that no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law. The State cannot dispossess a citizen of his property except in accordance with the procedure established by law. The obligation to pay compensation, though not expressly included in Article 300A, can be inferred in that Article. The State in exercise of its power of eminent domain may interfere with the right of property of a person by acquiring the same but the same must be for a public purpose and reasonable compensation therefor must be paid. The right to property is recognised as a basic human right. It is accepted in every jurisprudence and by different political thinkers that some amount of property right is an indispensable safeguard against tyranny and economic oppression of the Government. Jefferson was of the view that liberty cannot long subsist without the support of property. “Property must be secured; else liberty cannot subsist” was the opinion of John Adams. Indeed, the view that property itself is the seed bed which must be conserved if other constitutional values are to flourish is the consensus among political thinkers and jurists.

The Supreme Court of India noted that it is a prevalent gender stereotype that women officers find it challenging to meet the hazards of service owing to their prolonged absence during pregnancy, motherhood and domestic obligations towards their children and families, as the notion assumes that domestic obligations rest solely on women. Reliance on the ‘inherent physiological differences between men and women’ rests in a deeply entrenched stereotypical and constitutionally flawed notion that women are the ‘weaker’ sex and may not undertake tasks that are ‘too arduous’ for them. Arguments founded on the physical strengths and weaknesses of men and women and on assumptions about women in the social context of marriage and family do not constitute a constitutionally valid basis for denying equal opportunity to women officers. To deny the grant of permanent commission to women officers on the ground that this would upset the ‘peculiar dynamics’ in a unit casts an undue burden on women officers which has been claimed as a ground for excluding women. If society holds strong beliefs about gender roles, that men are socially dominant, physically powerful and the breadwinners of the family and that women are weak and physically submissive, and primarily caretakers confined to a domestic atmosphere, it is unlikely that there would be a change in mindsets

Human liberty is a precious constitutional value; it is as tenuous as tenuous can be. Liberty survives by the vigilance of her citizens, on the cacophony of the media and in the dusty corridors of courts alive to the rule of (and not by) law. The doors of the court cannot be closed to a citizen who is able to establish prima facie that the instrumentality of the State is being weaponized for using the force of criminal law to the detriment of human liberty. The basic entitlement of every citizen who is faced with allegations of criminal wrongdoing, is that the investigative process should be fair. This is an integral component of the guarantee against arbitrariness under Article 14 and of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21. The Supreme Court considered the given principle in Arnab Manoranjan Goswami v. State of Maharashtra, [AIR 2021 SC 1], which binds that the courts must be alive to the need to safeguard the public interest while ensuring that the due enforcement of criminal law is not obstructed. The fair investigation of crime is an aid to it. Equally it is the duty of courts across the spectrum-the district judiciary, the High Courts and the Supreme Court to ensure that the criminal law does not become a weapon for the selective harassment of citizens. The inherent power of the High Court must be construed as an aid to preserve the constitutional value of liberty. The writ of liberty runs through the fabric of the Constitution. The need to ensure fair investigation of crime is undoubtedly important in itself, because it protects at one level, the rights of the victim and, at a more fundamental level, the societal interest in ensuring that crime is investigated and dealt in accordance with law. On the other hand, the misuse of the criminal law is a matter of which the courts in this country must be alive

In jurisprudence, distinction between theoretical and practical aspects of law is the basis of an independent science of law, the purpose of which is not to subserve practical ends but to serve pure knowledge, which is concerned with facts but not with words. At the present time, the juristic science is an exclusively a practical science of law and adequate methods have been evolved for the application of law by the judges. The result of this situation is that its teaching on the subject of law and legal relations, subject matter and method, can be given only by the practical science of law. It aims to supply the judge with legal propositions, formulated in the most general terms possible, in order that the greatest possible number of decisions might be derived from them. It teaches the judge how to apply the general propositions to the specific cases. However, the human thinking is necessarily dominated by the underlying purpose and the thinking of the jurist is conditioned by the practical purposes pursued by juristic science. The jurist does not mean by law that which lives and is operative in human society as law, but law exclusively important in the administration of justice as a rule according to which the judges must decide the legal disputes. However, juristic science as a whole proceeds by abstractions and deductions but sometimes loses contact with reality. The rule of human conduct and the rule according to which the judges decide legal disputes may be distinct; a layman does not always act according to the rules which the judges apply for the judicial decisions as the rules to guide human conduct. However, the scientific view has given way to the practical view, adapted to the requirements of the judicial officials according to which they must proceed, but they arrive at this view by a jump in their personal thinking. They mean that the rules according to which courts decide are the rules according to which men ought to regulate their conduct. In this respect it is altogether different from true science. It is true that that judicial decisions influence the conduct of men, but we must first of all inquire to what extent this is true and upon what circumstances it depends

There is really nothing new, not already anticipated in a distressed planet since the emergence of human species life nearly two million years ago. So, a long prehistory of inter-faith dialogue entailing the reciprocal relation between religious traditions and the robustness of the very idea of being human and having rights, precedes the recent UN movement of faith for rights (F4R). The F4R framework has finally been affirmed by the United Nations system. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHR) promoted the Rabat plan of action in 2012. Note that this happened after the end of the Cold War, during globalisation, and soon after 9/11. The plan was a result of a series of expert workshops on the prohibition of incitement to national, racial or religious hatred, underlying “legislative patterns, judicial practices and policies”. The UN Human Rights Council is shortly going to discuss further the prohibition of the advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to “discrimination, hostility or violence”.

A new report forecasting that India can create millions more jobs over the coming years in the gig economy underscores a fundamental shift in the nature of work. While automation swept through factory floors and BPOs reduced manpower requirements, e-commerce, ride hailing and food delivery apps, streaming media and fintech have created lakhs of temporary jobs in the services sector. Although the jury is still out on the quality of life accorded by such gigs and the social security benefits they accord, recall that informalisation of jobs started much earlier. The report by Boston Consulting Group and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation predicts 90 million flexi and gig jobs in a decade from 8 million now, contributing transactions valued at more than $250 billion and an additional 1.25% to India’s GDP. Obviously, technological evolutions are hard to predict. A decade ago, few, if any, had divined these new jobs. Ac cepting change as the sole constant, it is equally critical to create the socio-economic framework that can support such jobs.
Expecting startups fuelled by venture capital and presently unprofitable to treat gig workers as regular employees isn’t practical. Such moves could impede innovation and investment. But if central and state governments could deliver in areas like public health, education, insurance and food security, anxieties generated by unsteady, irregular unemployment can be managed better. Last year’s nationwide lockdown when the suddenly unemployed migrant workers panicked and bolted, untrusting the promises of governments to care for them, served out this lesson in poignant detail. The gig economy does promise flexibility and improved choices for many women and part time workers. Every technological revolution till date has effaced some jobs and created plentiful others. There is room for optimism in the rapidly emerging techmediated world, but only upon strengthening the support of educational and health infrastructure.

In the domain of education, the current pandemic has made three things clear. It has proved beyond any doubt that we need schools. Irrespective of which country one talks about, students and parents want schools to open and function in full glory, with appropriate precautions. Secondly, it has shown that technology may prove to be useful in education if it is employed thoughtfully. Random surfing of the Internet may lead to a collection of pieces of information that do not add up to any meaning. As Noam Chomsky says, “You cannot pursue any kind of inquiry without a relatively clear framework that is directing your search and helping you choose what is significant and what is not.” Moreover, there cannot be any hegemonic technomanagerial solutions to the linguistic and cultural heterogeneity of students; technology must help us to respect individual, peer group and community needs and aspirations. Thirdly, a convergence of the efforts of the public, civil society and private enterprise will have to take place if we wish technology to meaningfully mediate between school and home, particularly among underprivileged groups.
The concept, structure and functioning of a school/college should not be trivialised in any way. This institution has survived since ancient times in spite of proposals for “de -schooling” of various kinds. It is true that schools to a great extent perpetuate the status quo and, as Ivan Illich observed, encourage “consumerism” and “obedience to authority”; but it is also true that those who produced some of the most revolutionary moments in history, including quantum jumps in knowledge, also went to school. The kind of web of learners Illich imagines may in fact have its roots in schools. There are also people who trivialise schools for the kind of investments they demand in terms of space, buildings, teachers, libraries and labs and other infrastructure. 
One thing you never forget is the school you went to, friends you made there and the kind of teachers who taught you; the kind of teachers you loved, the kind you mocked at with friends. You recollect nostalgically the sports and other co-curricular activities you took part in. Some of you may still have preserved your school blazer, trophies and photographs with a sense of joy. It is important to see school holistically; it is not a set of atomic items of rooms, library, assembly halls, canteen and playgrounds; it is all of these but in symbiotic relationship with each other, the contours of which are often far too obvious and often simply mysterious.

Following the transition to democracy, with the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president in I994, South Africa was faced with the task of dealing with its past, as well as undertaking some action to deal with structural social injustice. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), heralded as the most ambitious and organised attempt to deal with crimes of a past regime through a concept of truth, came into force on 19th July I995 in South Africa. Emerging as a political strategy to acknowledge past suffering whilst promoting a future based on the concerns of social justice, the rule of law and reconciliation, the Commission has struggled to fulfil its objectives. Although the TRC incorporated these broader concerns into the mandate of its three sub-committees, they were disregarded in practice. These sub-committees, which reflected concerns for ‘human rights violations’, ‘amnesty’ and ‘reparation and rehabilitation’, were not ‘coupled with some form of social transformation’. The public transition from apartheid, established through a negotiated settlement rather than a revolutionary process, framed the Commission’s powers. Shaped by the historical context of this particular transition, the TRC was careful not to ‘rock the structural boat’. Rather than pursuing truth and justice, as an integrated feature of social transformation, the Commissioners and, to a greater extent, the government of South Africa, maintained an agenda that avoided a challenge to the status quo. A focus on restorative justice was taken by the Commission with an emphasis placed on mechanisms to restore victims and survivors, through reparations policy, state-led acknowledgement of suffering, and a condemnation, together with the transformation, of the system that implemented such widespread forms of abuse. The priority of changing the apartheid conditions of gross inequality and oppression provided a backdrop to the approval of the TRC by those who had suffered. More difficult to accept was the provision of amnesty to those who had undertaken violations of human rights. The process placed amnesty of violations as a carrot to perpetrators in exchange for a full story, with the stick of prosecutions for those who did not come forward.

Since the worldwide inoculation process is going strong, vaccine diplomacy has become a hot topic. In their quest for ensuring vaccine security, a report by The New York Times, based on the data on vaccine contracts compiled by Duke University, shows that the advance purchase contracts made by some advanced countries for potential vaccines would vaccinate their population many times: the European Union, two times, the United States and the United Kingdom, four times, and Canada, six times. The expectation that an early vaccination will bring back normalcy and a required push to economic growth fuelled many advanced countries to engage in vaccine battles. The arguments of public good and global cooperation have gone out of the window now. While advanced countries have turned their back on the need of poor countries to access COVID-19 vaccines, India has displayed empathy to their needs. India has taken a position that a significant percentage of the approved doses will be permitted for exports. While its exports to neighbouring countries will be under grant mode, initial shipment of vaccines to least developed countries will be free of cost. And, shipments of vaccines from India have already started reaching different parts of the developing world. While India is in its first phase of vaccination to cover health-care workers, exports from India are helping other countries also in initiating phase one of their vaccination programme, a gesture well appreciated globally. In a democracy, one can expect the backlash of sending vaccines abroad without vaccinating its population. Nevertheless, India’s approach only reinforces the need of having coordinated global efforts in bringing COVID-19 under control. This response manifests India’s unstinted commitment to global development and has consolidated its name as the world’s pharmacy. The attitude of India towards vaccinating the populations in the poorer countries has generated discussion in the richer countries about the necessity for more proactive measures to roll out vaccines to the developing nations.

Since long, we have witnessed unimaginable levels of success and failure of various projects, businesses, scientific missions and even wars. From such triumphs and defeats emerges the much debatable thought: Is planning and strategy more important than execution? Some project leaders and their teams are of the view that planning leads to clarity of objectives; it helps to set the timeline and the budget. Consequently, when the planning is haphazard and unstructured, the very aims of the projects become hazy. This further leads to unprecedented budget collapses and poor time-management. In some cases, teams have worked relentlessly to complete assignments, but poor planning has invariably led to customer dissatisfaction and at times a complete collapse of the entire project. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Numerous entrepreneurs have the faith that strategies help to enhance not only speed and quality of production, but also consumer satisfaction. If there are no strategies to tackle unplanned events or unexpected interruptions, there is a possibility of entire projects coming to a grinding halt. Some of the world’s best airports, bridges and astronomical missions are the result of careful planning and excellent strategies. However, there are some architects, artists and entrepreneurs who prefer to dive straight from the board of ideas into the pool of execution. They believe that suitable strategies are best shaped during the process of execution; great plans and strategies can fail while encountering unexpected situations. Steve Jobs says, “To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.”
According to Bill Gates, unhappy customers are the greatest source of learning. Fickle-minded consumers and wavering market trends can mar projects that stand on fixed plans. It is the need-based, flexible and innovative strategies that help to withstand the impact of these vacillating desires and trends.
After rigorous planning and testing a new recipe on two lakh consumers, in 1985, the company Coke brought out the New Coke. Much to the company’s dismay, the product did not take off as expected and the financial loss was enormous. The company realized that during the process of data collection, it had not considered the product-loyalty and old-fashioned habits of the consumers. 
Hence, a balance of pragmatic planning, effective strategies and efficient execution is likely to ensure the accomplishment of tasks at each stage of a project. Successful execution is not an easy journey. The road is winding and bumpy. It may require tweaking or at times abandoning the original plan and re-designing it. Often, we turn to nature for inspiration. Think plans and strategies are the seed; execution is the nourishment; consumer is the capricious weather.

Read an extract from A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle:
“I rang the door-bell and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own. With hardly a word spoken, Sherlock Holmes waved me to an armchair. Then he stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion. “Watson, you did not tell me that you intended to go into harness.” “Then, how do you know?” “I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?” “My dear Holmes,” said I, “this is too much. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes, I can’t imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, but there, again, I fail to see how you work it out.” “It is simplicity itself,” said he; “my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously, they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scared round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey.” 
In fiction, detectives like Holmes are usually portrayed as people with exceptionally brilliant minds. They possess the rare skill to see and analyze what ordinary people can’t. They have incredible abilities to infer, deduce, induce and conclude. 
Then, there is G.K. Chesterton’s fictional catholic priest, Father Brown who relies on his extraordinary power of sympathy and empathy that enable him to imagine and feel as criminals do. He explains, “I had thought out exactly how a thing like that could be done, and in what style or state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure that I felt exactly like the murderer myself, of course I knew who he was.” 
Sherlock finds the criminal by starting from the outside. He relies on science, experimental methods and deduction. On the contrary, Father Brown uses varied psychological experiences learned from those who make confessions of crime to him. He relies on introspection, intuition and empathy. 
There is yet another set of detectives like those created by writers like Agatha Christie. Her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot is a story-teller who draws information from the stories that others tell. He patiently listens to numerous accounts of what happened, where it happened and how it happened. He listens for credibility and ambiguity; he identifies why and how the pieces of the jig-saws don’t fit together. Ultimately, he uncovers the truth.

Starting in April 2020, China amassed a large number of troops and armaments along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and other areas along the LAC, leading to stand-offs and skirmishes at certain points. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) moved into Indian territory and built fortified structures and defences, changing the status quo on the ground. While there are differences in perception on the alignment of the LAC, over the years both sides concluded a series of agreements to maintain peace and tranquillity on the border, while talks continued to resolve the dispute. Since then, several friction points emerged in eastern Ladakh and both sides initiated diplomatic and military talks aimed at disengagement and de-escalation, with India pushing for the restoration of status quo ante of pre-April. India and China earlier reached an understanding for phased disengagement from all friction points followed by de-escalation from the depth areas along the LAC.

As soon as the coronavirus hit the world, India emphasised the imperative of collaboration to overcome the inimical health and economic impact of the virus. It was with this objective that the Indian government organised a virtual meeting of SAARC leaders on March 15, 2020. In the initial months of the pandemic, India, by virtue of the fact that it is the ‘pharmacy of the world’, ramped up production of essential medicines like hydroxychloroquine, paracetamol etc. as well as Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) kits, ventilators and masks. In the rapidly evolving global geo-political landscape, the healing and supportive actions by India through supply of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines will have a huge impact in promoting peace, security, cooperation and prosperity in the region and the world. This is all the more commendable when there are only few countries in the world who have thus far been able to successfully manufacture COVID-19 vaccines

UNESCO New Delhi, along with the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and other partners, organised a hybrid event with school children and teachers to celebrate ‘World Water Day 2021’. The event included felicitating the winners of a water conservation awareness programme, and screening of their winning animation short films, according to an official release. UNESCO launched this nation-wide programme for school children in India, in partnership with the National Mission for Clean Ganga, the United Schools Organization (USO), Water Digest and India based global animation major Toonz Media Group. Entitled ‘H2Ooooh!-Waterwise program for children of India’, this innovative initiative encouraged school students between the age of 6-14 years to submit story ideas for animated short films to raise awareness on water conservation and its sustainable use.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to Bangladesh, congratulated the neighbouring country for its 50th year of Independence and said that he too had gone to jail while protesting for Bangladesh’s liberation. “I was about 20-22 years old when along with some friends I had protested in favour of Bangladesh during its struggle. I even went to jail. Pakistan’s atrocities in Bangladesh are well known…the pictures didn’t allow me to sleep,” PM Modi said. He also paid respect to the Indian Army who fought for the freedom ofBangladesh and also paid respect to Bangladesh’s Father of the Nation, ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and conferred upon him the Gandhi Peace Prize 2020. “I pay my respects to Bangabandhu. He gave his life for the people of Bangladesh. Bangabandhu Mujibur Rehman was a ray of hope. He made sure that no country could enslave Bangladesh.”, PM Modisaid.

The search for efficient trade routes and better connectivity has been one of the powerful driving forces of history. It has determined the prospects of many nations, regions and civilizations over time. Today, as the world goes through a fundamental re-balancing, correcting many of the distortions of the past, it is only natural that connectivity should be central to that exercise. Growth in trade, commerce, industrial development and technological advancement has gone hand in hand with ease of connecting. Maritime connectivity, in particular, has played a significant role in creating regional corridors for trade and economic linkages, as indeed for cultural and intellectual exchanges over the centuries. The shift in the fulcrum of global economic growth towards Asia is creating unprecedented opportunities for connectivity in the region. The Government of India, recognising the importance of regional connectivity, made a landmark decision to undertake an overseas port investment in Chabahar.

India has added Tso Kar Wetland Complex in Ladakh as its 42ndRamsar site, which is a second one in the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh. Expressing happiness, Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Prakash Javadekar shared this information in a tweet message. The Tso Kar Basin is a high-altitude wetland complex, consisting of two principal waterbodies, Startsapuk Tso, a freshwater lake of about 438 hectares to the south, and Tso Kar itself, a hypersaline lake of 1800 hectares to the north, situated in the Changthang region of Ladakh, India. It is called Tso Kar, meaning white lake, because of the white salt efflorescence found on the margins due to the evaporation of highly saline water. The Tso Kar Basin is an A1 Category Important Bird Area (IBA) as per Bird Life International and a key staging site in the Central Asian Flyway. The site is also one of the most important breeding areas of the Blacknecked Crane (Grus nigricollis) in India. This IBA is also the major breeding area for Great Crested Grebe (Podicepscristatus), Bar-headed Geese (Anserindicus), Ruddy Shelduck (Tadornaferruginea), Brown-headed Gull (Larusbrunnicephalus), Lesser Sand-Plover (Charadriusmongolus) and many other species.

Harm suffered voluntarily does not constitute a legal injury and is not actionable. This principle is embodied in the maxim volenti non fit injuria. A person cannot complain of harm to the chances of which he has exposed himself with his free consent and free will. The maxim volenti non fit injuria is founded on good sense and justice. A person who has invited or assented to an act being done towards him cannot, when he suffers from it, complain of it as a wrong. The maxim presupposes a tortious act by the defendant. The maxim applies, in the first place, to intentional acts which would otherwise be tortious. There are certain limitations to the application of this maxim:
(i) It is no answer to a claim made by a workman against his employer for injury caused through a breach by the employer of a duty imposed upon him by a statute. But where the negligence or breach of statutory duty is on the part of an employee of the plaintiff who knowingly accepts the risk flowing from such breach and the employer-defendant is not guilty of negligence or breach of statutory duty, the defence of volenti non fit injuria is available to the defendant. 
(ii) Under an exigency caused by the defendant’s wrongful misconduct, consciously and deliberately faced a risk, even of death, whether the person endangered is one to whom he owes a duty of protection, as a member of his family, or is a mere stranger to whom he owes no such special duty. The rescuer will not be deprived of his remedy merely because the risk which he runs is not the same as that run by the person whom he rescues. But where there is no need to take any risk, the person suffering harm in doing so cannot recover. 
(iii) To cover a case of negligence the defence on the basis of the maxim must be based on implied agreement whether amounting to contract or not. The defence is available only when the plaintiff freely and voluntarily, with full knowledge of the nature and extent of the risk impliedly agreed to incur it and to waive any claim for injury. But when the plaintiff has no choice or when the notice is given at a stage when it is beyond the ability of the plaintiff to make a choice there can be no implied agreement and the defence on the basis of the maxim must fail. 
(iv) The maxim will also not apply when the act relied upon is done because of the psychological condition which the defendant’s breach of duty had induced

It is essential to the creation of a contract that both parties should agree to the same thing in the same sense. Mutual consent, which should also be a free consent, is the sine qua non of a valid agreement and one of its essential elements is that a thing is understood in the same sense by a party as is understood by the other. Not only consent, but free consent is provided in Section 10 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 to be necessary to the complete validity of a contract. Consent is free when it works without obstacles to impede its exercise. Where there is no consent or no real and certain object of consent, there can be no contract at all. Where there is consent, but not free consent, there is generally a contract voidable at the option of the party whose consent was not free. A general averment that consent was not freely obtained is not enough, and it is necessary to set up one of the vitiating elements such as fraud which includes, false assertion, active concealment, promise without intention of performing it, any other deceptive act, or any act declared as fraudulent. In order to constitute fraud, the act should have been done by the party to the contract, or by any other person with his connivance, or by his agent and with intent to deceive the other party thereto or his agent, or to induce him to enter into the contract. There is no duty upon parties to speak about facts likely to affect the other party’s consent to the contract and mere silence does not amount to fraud, unless the circumstances of the case show that there is duty to speak, or silence is, in itself equivalent to speech. On the other hand, misrepresentation falls into three categories: (i) a statement of fact, which if false, would be misrepresentation if the maker believes it to be true, but which is not justified by the information he possesses; (ii) any breach of duty which gains an advantage to the person committing it by misleading another to his prejudice, there being no intention to deceive; and (iii) causing a party to an agreement to make a mistake as to the substance of the thing which is the subject of the agreement, even though done innocently.

Section 4 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 reads as follows:
Communication when complete - The communication of a proposal is complete when it comes to the knowledge of the person to whom it is made. The communication of an acceptance is complete, - as against the proposer, when it is put in a course of transmission to him so as to be out of the power of the acceptor; as against the acceptor, when it comes to the knowledge of the proposer. 
Thus, the provision makes no difference in the position of the offeror. The offeror becomes bound when a properly addressed and adequately stamped letter of acceptance is posted. The acceptor does not become bound by merely posting his acceptance. He becomes bound only when his acceptance comes to the knowledge of the proposer. The contract is concluded at the place from where the proposal is accepted and communication of acceptance is dispatched, i.e., the address at which the proposal was sent. The court at that place would have jurisdiction to entertain a cause of action under the contract. This rule, that the communication of an acceptance is complete as against the proposer when the letter is posted, is probably intended to apply only when the parties are at a distance and they communicate by post. “Where, however, the parties are in each other’s presence or, though separated in space”, they are in direct communication, as, for example, by telephone, no contract will arise until the offeror receives the notification of acceptance

It is a well settled principle of contract law that parties cannot by contract exclude the jurisdiction of all courts. Such a contract would constitute an agreement in restraint of legal proceedings and contravene Section 28 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. However, where parties to a contract confer jurisdiction on one amongst multiple courts having proper jurisdiction, to the exclusion of all other courts, the parties cannot be said to have ousted the jurisdiction of all courts. Such a contract is valid and will bind the parties to a civil action. Section 28. Agreements in restraint of legal proceedings, void-Every agreement, -
(a) by which any party thereto is restricted absolutely from enforcing his rights under or in respect of any contract, by the usual legal proceedings in the ordinary tribunals, or which limits the time within which he may thus enforce his rights; or 
(b) which extinguishes the rights of any party thereto, or discharges any party thereto, from any liability, under or in respect of any contract on the expiry of a specified period so as to restrict any party from enforcing his rights, is void to the extent. 
Parties cannot by agreement confer jurisdiction on a court which lacks the jurisdiction to adjudicate. But where several courts would have jurisdiction to try the subject matter of the dispute, they can stipulate that a suit be brought exclusively before one of the several courts, to the exclusion of the others.