Internship Experience @ Chambers of Advocate Dheeraj Lagwal, District Court of Kangra, Dharamshala: Attend Client Counselling Sessions

Your Name, College, Year of Study, Email ID

Anonymous

Name of Organisation, Location city, Team Strength

Chambers of Advocate Dheeraj Lagwal, District Court of Kangra at Dharamshala

Application Process with contact details

A simple phone call to him or one of his juniors will do your job.

One can contact Advocate Ashish Pathania, he will put you up through with sir.

Duration of internship and timings

3rd June, 2015 to 17th July, 2015

First impression, first day formalities, infrastructure

Dharamshala District court is one of the courts you see in Jolly LLB except for advocates sitting outside the court premises.

The court is a three floor building, with a small area for parking and an adjacent building for the district legal aid services authority with no one to report in the office.

The infrastructure is poor, the courtroom and building are old and very small. Some courts are smaller than a classroom. There are no cabins as such, the court looks like a huge classroom which chairs and tables. There is not even a canteen in the premises. Though now the court is about to shift to a new and a beautiful building.

There are a sizable and healthy number of females working in the court, which boosts up the morale of the intern.

Main tasks

The most enriching jobs that I had included.

1. Going to the Jail with the clerk of the senior for many a forms that we had to get filled by the client.

2. Many of the juniors of my senior were Court appointed ParaLegal volunteers, they were detailed with villages, for which they were responsible. This experience of going to the furthest ends of the country where the size of a village is not more than 50- 100 people and disseminating legal knowledge and legal support, established my very faith in the study of law,

3. I had the opportunity of going for demarcations, police station inquiries attending client counselling sessions, seeing the job being done in the very grass root level of the Judicial and Executive sphere of India.

4. I was made to walk around the offices and explained the detailed procedure of filing a normal plaint, the court fee, types of forms to be filled for true copies/ summons etc.

5. I was lucky enough to have also been given the job of drafting the cases which came through the way of District Legal Services Authority.

Work environment and people

The work environment is generally laid back and monotonous.

The healthy ratio of males and females is very encouraging.

People treat and greet others with lot of respect.

Best things

The best things are of course the scenic beauty the court is just opposite to the Dhauladhar mountain range. McLeod Ganj is nearby, there are a lot of monasteries. The bus stop is merely 10 meters away.

My personal favorite was to go the near by offices to enquire how things worked there, I was treated and guided in the police station, the Education board and even the All India Radio office at Dharamshala.

Bad things

The timings were based on the senior or the judge at times.

I wasn’t taken seriously as a first year.

With the problems between the Shimla High court’s benches, the court sees a lot of strikes and unofficial offs.

Stipend

None

Biggest Lessons

I learnt a lot about the hollow dreams of college going students as to the functioning of a court. I gathered that one needs to have a very strong heart so as to do litigation and judiciary in specific. It somehow also restored my faith in the Indian judicial system.

Overall Rating

4

Accommodation

My house is pretty nearby and hence there was no need of the same.

Office Timings

Work timing were as according to the time of the functioning of the court. which was usually 10 to 4. The day of the intern would very much depend upon the whims and fancies of his senior and the arrival of the judge in the court. The timings were super relaxed, they were further relaxed because of me being a first year.