National Legislation Drafting Competition 2026 by SALE, RGNUL Punjab on Assured Price Mechanism in the Agricultural Sector [Online; Cash Prizes up to Rs 5,000]

The School of Agricultural Law and Economics (SALE) at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL), Punjab, is organising the National Legislation Drafting Competition 2026. Participants draft a piece of legislation on the theme “Assured Price Mechanism in the Agricultural Sector” and submit it through the official registration form. The authors of the top 10 papers will be invited to present their work online.

RGNUL, Punjab was established by the Punjab State Legislature through the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab Act, 2006 (Punjab Act No. 12 of 2006) and received Bar Council of India approval in July 2006. In May 2015 it became the first National Law University to be accredited by NAAC with an ‘A’ grade, and in 2018 it was among four NLUs granted autonomous status by the UGC.

SALE is a Centre of Excellence at RGNUL for teaching and research in agricultural law and economics. It brings law, economics and policy together on questions of agricultural marketing, insurance, tenancy, credit, standardisation and international trade, with an emphasis on sustainability and environmental protection.

The competition asks for a statutory framework for an assured price mechanism in agriculture. Guaranteed pricing through the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system is today largely confined to paddy and wheat, and the brochure notes that this concentration has contributed to groundwater depletion, ecological degradation and a sharp fall in crop diversification.

Drafts should extend price assurance to a much wider range of crops, regardless of market fluctuations. The proposed mechanisms should aim to:

• encourage crop diversification;
• reduce farm dependence on water-intensive crops;
• tackle the root causes of agricultural debt and farmer distress;
• protect farmer livelihoods and long-term environmental sustainability; and
• support employment across the farming ecosystem.

• Open to undergraduate (3-year or 5-year B.A. LL.B.) and postgraduate (LL.M.) law students enrolled in any recognised law college.
• You may take part individually or in a team of two authors at most.
• Cross-institutional teams are allowed.

• File formats: the draft must be submitted in both Word (.docx) and PDF (.pdf).
• Font: Times New Roman for body text and footnotes.
• Font sizes: main title or Act name 16 pt; chapter or part titles 14 pt; sub-headings and section headings 12 pt; body text and statutory provisions 12 pt; footnotes and citations 10 pt.
• Line spacing: 1.5 for the body and 1.0 for footnotes.
• Margins: 1 inch (2.54 cm) on all sides.
• Page numbers: bottom centre of each page.
• Word limit: 10,000 to 12,000 words, excluding the cover page and footnotes.
• Citation style: either OSCOLA (4th edition) or Bluebook (20th or 21st edition), used uniformly throughout.

The draft must not contain any personal details, such as the author’s name, institution or university name, contact details or logo. Only the assigned Team Code may appear, in the top right corner of the cover page. Breaching the anonymity rules will lead to immediate disqualification.

• Single author: INR 500
• Co-author(s): INR 750

All submissions are made through the official Google Form registration link given in the brochure (the form asks you to sign in to a Google account). Registrations opened on 22 September 2026 and close on 22 October 2026. The last date to submit the final draft legislation is 5 November 2026. Results will be declared in November 2026.

For queries, write to sale@rgnul.ac.in or call one of the student convenors listed below.

• Patron-in-Chief: Prof. (Dr.) Jai Shankar Singh, Vice-Chancellor, RGNUL
• Patrons: Prof. (Dr.) Naresh Vats, Dean Academics, and Dr. Ivneet Kaur Walia, Registrar
• Co-ordinator: Dr. Brindpreet Kaur, Faculty Co-ordinator, SALE