LOKMANTRA: 10th SGTU Moot Court Competition 2026, School of Law, SGT University, Gurugram [Offline; Cash Prizes Rs 1,15,000]

The Moot Court Society of the School of Law, SGT University (Shree Guru Gobind Singh Tricentenary University), Gurugram, invites registrations for LOKMANTRA (“The Voice of the People”), the 10th SGTU Moot Court Competition, on the theme of Constitutional Governance, Civil Liberties and Digital Rights. It is a national, offline competition held on the SGT University campus in Gurugram, Haryana, from 22 to 24 October 2026, and is run as a knockout from the preliminary rounds through to the final.

The competition is meant as a platform for law students to test their advocacy, legal reasoning and research on questions of fundamental rights, institutional accountability and the exercise of State power in the digital age.

SGT University is a UGC-recognised university established in 2013, with a campus of more than 70 acres on the outskirts of Gurugram and a NAAC A+ accreditation. Its School of Law offers B.A.LL.B. (Hons.), B.B.A.LL.B. (Hons.), LL.M., Ph.D. and diploma programmes. The Moot Court Society is the School’s student body for advocacy, working under faculty guidance, and LOKMANTRA is its flagship national competition. The faculty convenors are Ms. Udiksha Rana and Dr. Rajni Yadav, with Mr. Saarthak Biswas and Ms. Divya Issarani as faculty co-convenors.

The 2026 proposition places before a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of the fictional Republic of Indica (whose law is pari materia with India’s) a cluster of questions arising from a compromised national medical entrance examination and the public protest that followed. Teams will argue on:

• the constitutionality of cancelling and re-conducting a national public examination under Articles 14 and 21;
• criminal liability for unauthorised access to and circulation of confidential examination material under penal and information technology law;
• the validity of prohibitory orders, internet suspensions and the blocking of online content;
• the detention of a journalist and the seizure of journalistic equipment; and
• liability for excessive or unlawful use of police force.

The competition is open to teams from recognised law institutions across India. Any student enrolled bona fide on a regular basis in a full-time undergraduate law course at a recognised institution is eligible. More than one team may register from the same institution, and in universities with constituent colleges or schools, each constituent may register a team or the university may field a combined team.

• Each team has at most three members: two Speakers and one Researcher.
• A team may compete without a designated Researcher, in which case one of the Speakers sits the Researcher’s Test if it is held.
• No change in team composition is allowed once communicated, without the Secretariat’s prior permission, and a participant may represent only one team.
• Participants must produce valid institutional identification for verification.

• Without accommodation: Rs 3,000 per team
• With accommodation: Rs 5,000 per team

The fee is paid through the payment scanner in the official brochure and is non-refundable unless the Secretariat decides otherwise. Accommodation is provided subject to availability and the terms notified by the Secretariat.

• Each team prepares one memorial for each party, with the mandatory heads: Cover Page, Table of Contents, Index of Authorities, Statement of Jurisdiction, Statement of Facts, Issues Raised, Summary of Arguments, Arguments Advanced and Prayer.
• The soft copy is due online by 17 October 2026, and four hard copies are submitted on 22 October 2026 at the venue. Hard copies must be identical to the soft copy and spiral- or soft-bound.
• Main text in Times New Roman 12, 1.5 line spacing, 1-inch margins on A4; footnotes in Times New Roman 10, single-spaced, with no speaking footnotes. Petitioner covers are blue and Respondent covers red.
• No annexures, photographs, graphs or diagrams, and no indication of the team’s institution or members anywhere in the memorial.
• Rule 8.3 prescribes Bluebook (21st edition) citation while Rule 8.9 also lists OSCOLA format, so teams may want to raise this in the clarification window, which closes on 7 October 2026.

After a Memorial Round, the oral rounds run as knockouts: Preliminary Rounds, Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals and Final, with the exact number of rounds fixed by the Secretariat according to the number of registered teams. Pairings are decided by draw of lots, and the team with the higher raw score in a round advances. Preliminary benches have two judges, and the Secretariat may constitute a three-judge bench for the Semi-Finals and a five-judge bench for the Final. A Researcher’s Test may be held to decide the Best Researcher. Pleadings are in English only, courtroom formals are the dress code, and scouting of any kind is prohibited.

Read the Rule Book and the Moot Problem, pay the registration fee for the chosen category, and complete the official registration form (a Google sign-in is required to open it) by 5 October 2026. For queries, write to mcs@sgtuniversity.org.