1 post tagged “tvs flame”

In a recent hearing of the case by Madras High court, the judge cited references from the blog post of Sai Deepak, a law student at Rajiv Gandhi School of IP Law, IIT Kharagpur as part of its analysis of the case. The verdict till now seems to be slightly absurd with TVS allowed to manufacture the bike but not allowed to sell it (To do what? put bikes in Museums??). But nonetheless, the whole incident brings Indian legal system and power of blogs into a new light. Till now, the general opinion has been that blogs, wikipedia and other such user generated stuff is not believable. In fact, Bajaj Auto has indeed tried to contend that the hight court should not use a blogger's analysis for judging the case:

"As for the genuine,valid and well-intentioned queries raised by some of our readers regarding the wisdom of the Madras HC in relying on a blog post, one understands where they are coming from because this was the first question that crossed my mind. However, i would think that the blog post performed a more corollarial/paraphernalial role rather than being the central piece; i say this because the Court, after having perused the materials and arguments submitted by both the parties, must have felt the need for literature which breaks down the issues involved in a lucid unbiased manner without watering down the intricacies. In short, the Court was probably looking for something which clearly summarises the techno-legalities of the case and that,in my opinion, is precisely how the Court percieved the blog post. This is reflected in its observation that "the article does not conflict with the facts of the case". So only after going through the material submitted did the Court refer to the post to put things in perspective in an uncluttered fashion.To that extent, i think the reference is justified."

"As for the other factor- credentials of the author/forum- my honest answer would be that instead of taking a blanket stand that "blogs are reliable" or "blogs arent reliable", every piece of document must be weighed and judged on its own merits with a pinch of salt.If the twin fundamentals evidentiary principles of relevance and admissibility are satisfied and the content of the document serves the purpose for which it is adduced, which is to assist the Court in taking an informed stand, one doesnt see why such document must not be referred to."

But the question I've in my mind is: How on earth did the judge got the reference of this blog? And do Indian judges read blogs for that matter? So, now what happens to the general perception of Indian legal system being a crawling elephant? And what happens to livelihood of Firangi-authors, and India-born-but-writing-for-firangis-only-authors who like to enlighten us to the-other-side-of-India at every other podium, that it'll take 300 years to solve the present cases only in Indian courts, and that India is a loser? I think they'll take this as an exception and go back to their India's growth bashing.