Puneet Dinesh, a student at National Law University (NLU) Delhi, has won first place in the fifth Arb Excel All India Essay Writing Competition, organized by Kachwaha & Partners.
Dinesh won ₹100,000 (US$1,600) for his essay titled “Diluting the significance of ‘arbitral seat’ in domestic arbitration: Revisiting BALCO”. This is only the second time that a student outside Hyderabad’s NALSAR University of Law has claimed first prize.
Second place and ₹75,000 in prize money went to NALSAR’s Isha Kabra for her essay “Arbitrability of tax matters under bilateral investment treaties: A licence to walk over the obligations?”
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Ayush Marwah from Amity Law School Delhi claimed third prize and ₹50,000 for his essay “The ‘futility’ of the principle of exhaustion of local remedies in investment treaty arbitration”.
“In the past five years since start of the competition, 12 law schools have taken the top six places, which is a healthy spread,” managing partner Sumeet Kachwaha told India Business Law Journal. “The top three slots have been divided between seven colleges, however the clear winner is NALSAR.”
Finalists Varun Mansighka from NLU Jodhpur, Gladwin Issac from Gujarat National Law University (GNLU), and Soumya Jha from Hidayatullah NLU Raipur were each awarded ₹10,000 and a book prize. Three other students received honourable mentions and a book prize. They were Shivansh Jolly of GNLU, Pranaav Gupta of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences and Jayavardhan Josyula of NALSAR.
“The standard has been consistently high and impressive,” said Kachwaha. “We get about 50 entries each year, which is not a very high number, but understandable as there is no prize or certificate for mere participation. Our original intention was to give away prizes only for the top three entries, but when we saw the results in the first year, we expanded it to nine prizes in three categories.”
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