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The BCI Mishra ‘foreign fellow’ email: We sent back the winning crowdsourced response

On 1 June, Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra sent Legally India reporter Prachi Shrivastava an email making a number of allegations against her, and Legally India editor Kian Ganz, after Prachi had asked Mishra for a comment on why the BCI had forced all law schools to buy products from the All India Reporter (AIR).

We later reported that the BCI only forced all law schools to buy AIR products after the AIR had sponsored the BCI’s fancy 50th jubilee party in Delhi nine months earlier.

Mishra sent an email to Prachi after we reported the first AIR story, making several allegations and imputations (see his full email below).

We then asked readers for suggestions of a response to send to Mishra and received many wonderful entries.

We have now selected the most suitable, tempered and appropriate response and have just emailed this to Mishra with a short cover email.

We would ask the winner to please get in touch with us directly and in strict confidence, and we will award you your 12-month partner subscription prize to Legally India.

Other responses by readers can be read in the comments to this story. We deeply thank everyone who participated and as such, are awarding a consolation prize of a three-month senior subscription worth Rs 1,347 to anyone who participated and can give us to the pass phrase they provided in the comments on the old story.

Our full email to BCI chairman Mishra with winning entry

Dear Mr Mishra

I have taken the liberty of responding to your email dated 1 June to Prachi, since it makes several direct and oblique references to me and to Legally India.

First, I believe that your allegations have been answered sufficiently in our 8 June 2015 point-by-point rebuttal of your legal notice. I would like to remind you that we have not received a response from you on any of those points or our questions in turn, and would kindly urge you to respond.

https://www.legallyindia.com/Bar-Bench-Litigation/li-responds-to-manan-kumar-mishra-legal-notice

The only additional allegation you seem to raise in your email of 1 June, for the first time, is:

"if u are the same who had proposed for inclusion of some Law Book relating to Taxation matter in the curriculum of Law Institutions"

The imputation that Prachi, I or Legally India had ever proposed the inclusion of a taxation text book in a law school curriculum has no basis in reality whatsoever, and I have a hard time believing that it was honestly and reasonably held by you.

Furthermore, it is of some concern that the first time you are raising the new spurious imputation  comes at exactly the point in time that we have asked you about the propriety of the BCI making the products of one private company obligatory to law schools.

It suggests a long pattern of obfuscation and untrue counter-allegations when substantive issues are being raised that you can not or apparently do not want to provide satisfactory answers to.

We have also solicited our lawyer readers to come up with suitable responses to you, and have included one such letter from a reader below, which explains a little bit more and more charitably than we ever could ourselves what Legally India is about and what it is not, as well as some of the responsibilities and obligations a body such as the BCI has towards lawyers.

Please feel free to read others in the comments below this story:

https://www.legallyindia.com/bar-bench-litigation/manan-kumar-mishra-comments-on-air-contract-and-it-s-a-wonderful-rant

I look forward to hearing from you about positive initiatives at the BCI and constructive proposals to increase transparency at the BCI, which will hopefully help the organisation and the legal profession scale new heights in coming years.


Best regards
Kian

One reader's letter:
Mishra Ji,

Who am I?

I might be a foreign national, but I am also the editor and founder of Legally India (“LI”). It is a private company incorporated in India. Legally speaking, LI does not owe as many obligations to the law fraternity in India as ‘your’ autonomous and statutory body (the Bar Council of India) does.

Yet, I have done more for this fraternity as the editor of LI than you’ve in your capacity as the Chairman of BCI. LI brings to law students news from other law schools (mooting exploits, student representation, recruitment stats, et al.) and helps them in analysing their position vis-à-vis other law students in other law schools so that they can work towards improving themselves and making their own law school prouder.

LI has also informed them about the BCI’s recommendations such as those regarding dress codes for law students and those regarding mandatory subscription of AIR. Regardless of law school rivalries, one and all thought that they were ridiculous and, perhaps, borderline draconian, to say the least. At a time when law schools such as NUJS and NUALS struggle for funds and all others have many more pressing issues, both academic and otherwise, all BCI does for them is come up with such thought-provoking decisions.

LI brings to aspiring and young lawyers news about all the most sought after firms. It thereby triggers the kind of positive discourse that helps them in making better and more informed career choices. It also brings to them tough questions about its representatives sitting in the BCI office. When youngsters who are fresh out of law school and keen to defend India’s constitution see that the Chairman of their representative body has been called out by a forum run by a foreign fellow for handing out second grade treatment to sweepers at workplace, it doesn’t reflect very well on how the Bar Council of India functions.

LI is about transparency. LI is about honest journalism and reporting. I’d recommend you to make amends and start visiting LI regularly to understand what LI is about. It can help you, for instance, by providing you access to news related to lawyers, law firms, law schools, et al. All this information might come in handy for you and help you in discharging your duties as the Chairman of BCI in a better way.

But instead of appreciating the honest intentions of LI and using LI to better discharge your duties, you’ve yet again alleged us of being the same as “M/s. Rainmaker” and yet again attributed oblique motives to our quest of transparency. We had given you a clear point-to-point response about exactly one year back. Kindly refer to page 6 and respond whenever you are not busy signing ridiculous orders and passing arbitrary resolutions.

I’d also recommend you to visit LI for the user comments which are featured on its posts. Even though we do weed out some comments which are abusive, there is mostly no editorial control. You wouldn’t believe it, but this response was actually selected in an open online comments contest here and was on LI even before I sent it to you.

[...] This is meant to teach you the importance of not only (a) transparency, but also that of (b) objectivity in decision-making. Even if you do possess the latter, we (at LI) have struggled to put it out to our readers due to an evident lack of the former. To be honest, we had a conversation, you seemed to lack both of them.

If you were to publish minutes of your board meetings, students of law schools might be able to empathise with the BCI’s reasoning for pushing for mandatory subscription of AIR and recommending dress codes. Actually, I don’t think they would.

But then again, who am I?

Cartloads of love,
The same foreign fellow,
(on behalf of abusive Prachi and mischievous LI).

 

--
Kian Ganz
Publishing Editor
Legally India - News for Lawyers
http://www.LegallyIndia.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/legallyindia

On 2/6/16 06:00, Prachi Shrivastava (Legally India) wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Manan Mishra <REDACTED>
Date: 1 Jun 2016 10:42 pm
Subject: Re: All India Reporter
To: "PRACHI SHRIVASTAVA (Legally India)" <REDACTED>

Who are you ? First tell me , only then I'll be in a position to say anything. If you are the same lady who had come in the premises of BCI along with that foreign national & had created ugly scene by hurling abusive language against the staff and manhandled them. If it is same Legally India which is selling some guess-paper for All India Bar Exam. on a huge price cheating the examinees , if it is same Legally India which is involved in misuse of its license ( u did not supply the copy of ur license granted by Indian Govt. to us even after our request to that effect) by publishing all sorts of baseless things against BCI for laying undue & unsuccessful pressure in order to secure work of conducting AIBE to the part of legally India ie. M/s Rainmaker ; if u are the same who had proposed for inclusion of some Law Book relating to Taxation matter in the curriculum of Law Institutions ; then we are not going to entertain you or your so called media at all. BCI is a statutory autonomous body , it does not require your or that foreigners permission to include any book or material in the syllabus of Law Institutions.  One thing more , the tenure of contract with M/s Ites Horizon has now expired , if you have accepted the brief of some agency again for the coming tender and you have in your mind that by committing nuisance or making some sorts of baseless comments you will succeed in pressuring , tell your foreign fellow , it's Bar Council Of India  not of a foreign country. Here things are done fully in accordance with law. Decisions are taken after thorough consideration . The decision with regard to AIR has also been taken after consideration by a High Level body of BCI. Moreover it is the prerogative of the Council to take such decisions. 
The Legal Education Committee examines minimum Library requirements for an Institution . It has decided that materials of AIR electronic & other ,Central Acts , Local Acts , SCC , Corporate Law Advisor , Company Cases Indian Bar Review & other journals are the minimum requirements . AIR is the oldest Law Journal covering all the High Corts. E- library is one of the requirement for every law institution . We are sorry to say that we can't prescribe the study material of legally India for the institutions. Yours is simply a guess paper ; no scope . If you or some of your other friends have a good book or journal for the students of Law , you or he may also apply & present the book / journal before BCI or LEC and if found fit it can be included. It does not require  any tender or advertisement . I hope you will fully understand the things , And you shall refrain yourself from repeating your mischiefs against BCI. Thanks & sorry for the harsh words used, But what can I do you & your foreign national has always been involved in unnecessarily criticising BCI on the issue of AIBE. Even you crossed all your limits on the day the matter was listed before Honb'le Supreme Court. You tried to dictate the Court as to what the Honb'ble Judges should ask ! You should have thought that it was a contempt under Indian Law. But your foreign friend is probably knowing only the law of his own country. Learn journalism & the law of India , how to behave with Honb'ble Court here.

On Tuesday 31 May 2016, PRACHI SHRIVASTAVA (Legally India) <REDACTED> wrote:

Dear Mr Mishra,

Could you comment on the BCI's resolution deciding to prescribe using the All India Reporter's products to law schools?

Best regards,

Prachi

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