MAHARASHTRA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, AURANGABAD

INTERNSHIP REPORT 2019

(NOVEMBER- DECEMBER 2019)

SUBMITTED BY

NAME
ROLL NUMBER
BA LLB YEAR
BATCH
 INDEX

S.NO. CONTENT
1. DECLARATION
2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
3. CERTIFICATE
4. INTRODUCTION
5. DAILY WORK LOG
6. CONCLUSION

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 DECLARATION

This declaration is made at Maharshtra National Law University Aurangabad that, this
Internship Report is prepared and drafted by me, Niyati Kishore.

It contains the work that was assigned to me during my internship period, and successfully
accomplished from my side.

This report is a sincere attempt at compilation of the aforementioned work.

This has not been submitted, either in whole or in part, to any other Law University or affiliated
Institute under any University as recognized by the Bar Council of India, for the award of any
other law degree or diploma, within the territory of India.

Name-Niyati Kishore
Roll no- 2018/B.A.LL.B/23

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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 CERTIFICATE OF INTERNSHIP

INTRODUCTION

Established in 1942, the Eastern Book Company (EBC) Group is the intellectual giant in Indian
law publishing, with offices in several Indian cities. It is run by a unique combination of highly
qualified legal, managerial and information technology professionals, who have acquired their
expertise, across generations, from the leading universities and institutes of India, Asia, North
America and Britain.

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EBC publishes a wide range of legal commentaries, student texts, law reports and digests, and its
products include pioneering works both in the print and electronic medium. With a list of over
550 authoritative and well known titles, it is well recognized for its contribution to legal
literature worldwide. Enterprise and innovation imbue each new publication. Not only is
perfection desirable in itself but what is keenly felt is a desire to give the legal fraternity works of
the highest standard and dependability.

The law report Supreme Court Cases started in 1969 and now running into over 260 volumes,
is the leading law report of India with a very wide circulation, and is cited in all courts in India
and in all standard works of law. The standards of legal reporting set by it, have earned the
respect and admiration of the entire legal community. EBC has done pioneering work, by
creating for the first time a complete index/digest of the case law of the Indian Supreme Court in
its 35 volume publication, 'The Complete Digest of Supreme Court Cases The work
comprehensively covers the judgments delivered by the Supreme Court since its inception in
1950 till date. The second edition of this monumental work is currently under print.

Additionally, EBC publishes law journals for statutory law. The 'Current Central Legislation'
contains central statutory law, while 'Lucknow Law Times' in addition to the Central statutory
law also contains the statutory law of the State of Uttar Pradesh. Also, 'The Edict', a quarterly
National Law Review, publishes articles on topics of current legal debate authored by legal
luminaries, academics and senior members of the bench and bar. A house journal, 'The Practical
Lawyer', provides latest information about the developments in the legal world to its readers
along with a monthly digest of Supreme Court case-law.

Using the finest of technological innovations, EBC has pioneered law information databases for
making law easily accessible in the electronic medium. This has appeared in a revolutionary
form, in the electronic medium, as SCC Online's Supreme Court Case Finder This Information
Database and search program is a proven source for quick retrieval of case-law precedents of the
Supreme Court of India.

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Recently, EBC has started reprinting reports published by ICLR, London, namely ‘The Weekly
Law Reports’, and ‘The Law Reports’ for South Asia. In 2008, EBC has also released the
electronic version of the entire Law Reports since 1863 and the WLR since 1953 for marketing
in South Asia and South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The mark of EBC stands for authenticity, reliability and promptness. Thereby it also fulfils its
commitment to the rule of law.

REASON FOR EBC

Eastern Book Company being the biggest publishing house in legal studies gives an edge to this
company with respect to other publishing house as it is not only confined to publishing books but
also into publishing blogs and it ranges from legal commentaries, student texts, law reports and

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digests, and its products include pioneering works both in the print and electronic medium. I
particularly choose to intern at EBC as I wanted to know the inner working of the house as how
it works and at EBC they give interns to work on case brief and research on particular topics as I
got to know about this company from one of my senior in college and also her experience who
has done an internship there before she told me about the workings of the institution and
interning at publishing house was among one of the places that I want to intern at, EBC has its
head office in Lucknow its location is also one of the factors that I chose this company as it is my
hometown which is kind of a factor for choosing this place. By coming to know about various
experiences there I believed that for me this could be a learning experience and this internship
would be very beneficial to me as this will refine my writing abilities and hone my researching
abilities as for a law student or for someone in legal fraternity researching is one of the key
elements and I believed that by interning at this place I will develop my various abilities in
research and in writing because at publishing houses when u work there you get to know about
the in’s and out’s of that place or institution and its various facets Because that is how one will
develop one’s legal research skills that will help in future internships, article writing, paper
presentations, mooting, etc. Another reason for me to choose EBC was that I wanted to
experience the workings of the office before interning at any of the firms as to how the office
functions.

Work assigned during the tenure

The diversity of work at EBC is appreciable. This broadens the horizon of your learning. In the
following internship I got an opportunity to learn and work on variety of assignments. During my
internship tenure, I was assigned with various diverse tasks as EBC is into all three- Publishing,

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Online Blog and Web Edition, the versatility of tasks I got to do here could not have been
possible anywhere else. Some of the tasks which were assigned to me were preparing case briefs
of judgments delivered by various Indian and foreign courts, which were later, uploaded on the
SCC Blog. We were given cases from various High Courts and Foreign Courts as our daily work
to make the case briefs and it was of diverse fields like family law and various tribunals we also
got the cases from various Tribunals like NCLT etc. Apart from working on case briefs I also did
some research work on finding the commencement dates of various local laws of the Indian
states, Researching latest case laws for Family Courts Act, 1984, in which I particularly had to
deal with Coparcenary rights and read cases regarding that as to what are the important
judgments of Coparcenary rights and what are the opinion of the judiciary with respect to various
cases. The cases that I went thorough were Danamma v. Amar, Prakash v. Phulvati, Rohit
Chauhan v. Surender Singh, Mangammal v Raju, Leelabhai v Bhikabhai Shriram Pakhare
Ganduri Koteshwaramma v Chakiri Yanada Worked on SCC Volumes, Research on Personal
Data Protection Bill, 2018, made a detailed noter-up on A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras and
also on various other cases as this was for their latest edition of their in-house publishing on
Constitutional law, prepared head notes and guide notes of the judgments for their web edition,
prepared briefs on daily notifications published by the government, etc.

Research on Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 my area of research revolve around the
interpretation of word ‘intention’ , ‘knowingly’ , ‘recklessness’ and I came to know about
various principles and concepts with respect to data protection law i.e. The Principle of Purpose
Limitation in Data Protection laws and what significance the word ‘intention’ holds with respect
to the law regarding which we went through various international cases as to know the
understanding of the judiciary as such case was case of P.G. and J.H. vs. The United Kingdom.
With respect to the word ‘Knowingly’ i.e. to research on the interpretation of this word we
referred to Data Protection Registrar v. Amnesty International in which it was said that to prove
recklessness one must prove first that there is something in the circumstances that would have
drawn the attention of an ordinary, prudent individual to the possibility that this act was capable
of causing the kind of mischief that sections 5(2) and 5(5) are intended to prevent and that the
risk of those mischiefs occurring was not so slight that the ordinary, prudent individual would
feel justified in regarding them as negligible. Secondly, the prosecution must prove that before

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doing the act, the defendant either failed to give any thought to the possibility of their being such
a risk, or, having recognized that there was such a risk, he nevertheless went on to do it.

There were various other cases as well one of them was Information Commissioner v. Islington
Borough Council. The facts of the case are as follows- In 1998 and 1999 B was asked to provide
proof of his council tax payments in support of an application for legal aid. He asked the council
to send such proof to the address of his solicitor. The council recorded the solicitor's address on
its computer as B's address and used it to send letters to B demanding further payments of
council tax. The solicitor, concerned that his address might appear on a list of debtors, informed
the council of their error. The council took no action and in November 1999 a summons was
issued for non-payment of council tax and sent to B at the solicitor's address. The solicitor
complained to the Information Commissioner regarding breaches of data protection principles. It
was then discovered that the council's entry in the data protection register had lapsed for seven of
the purposes for which it collected information. The council stated that the Finance Director who
had dealt with registration had now left and failed to advise others that the registration required
renewal. In the judgment it was held that The council had been reminded of its need to renew the
registration and the council, as an ordinary prudent 'person', through its officers, would or should
have known that any data it held in the absence of renewal would contravene the Act. The
council employee who used the data to send the summons to B was reckless on the part of the
council as a whole. To look for recklessness in the person who actually accessed the data in the
computer would defeat the purpose of sec. 5.

Role and Responsibilities assigned during the internship

Interns are given diverse options for work. For interns, the work can be put into a dichotomy.
Amongst the variety of work that I did during my internship tenure, my major roles and
responsibilities were:

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 Drafting Case briefs- First half includes those works which continue for the complete
duration of the internship. This would include making case briefs and other things which
I can safely assume that you won’t have a chance to learn and work upon at any other
place. As Throughout my internship tenure we did case briefs on our regular basis
exploring different fields and tribunals of law. We used to get cases on various aspects of
law like Corporate Law, Family Law, Property Laws and some foreign court cases as
cases from UKSC and from tribunals as well like NCLT which clearly helped to refine
my writing abilities and my researching skills. The best part about this corpus of work
was that the interns were ‘taught’ how to make a brief out of a brief. The supervisors
taught us how to make your writing crisp and precise. I in fact, for the first time in my
life, briefed a hundred odd pages judgment in just two paragraphs.

 The second half includes the more exciting works. It includes making research on various
topics of as delegated by the supervisors which was diverse in nature as we were assigned
to research on day to day happening in the field of law regarding e-laws of Sri-Lanka and
what changes one can expect with respect to these laws in Sri-Lanka and how it is going
to effect India after coming to the new government in Sri-Lanka and various other aspects
of Data Protection Bill, 2018 and its aspects. We also had a two hour session with the
EBC Director Sumit Malik sir who really gave some valuable insights on this profession
and what it takes to run India’s biggest Publishing House, and what it takes to be
successful in this field he also gave orientation on our research methods as to how one
should channel his energy and resources and why researching in one of the key elements
in law and what importance it hold in a law student’s life which we would not be able to
know in our day to day activities or research. Overall it was a very good experience as it
was very informative and one thing I can assure is that each and every task given to the
interns was carefully chosen to make the learning, and also the work, as productive as
possible which would help in upcoming days of the student and this internship was truly
a worthwhile experience if a student is in his first or sophomore year of his college.
 My internship experience was not only confined to research or writing case briefs we had
an orientation session as well where we came to know the workings of the office and
what are the departments present in the Lucknow office as this is the main head office our

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 supervisor also gave the orientation and workings of SCC Online portal as to how this
portal works and to what extent it was different from other portals of the same sort as
they have a partnership with SCC Online. The best part about EBC was that it not only
deals with print material but they deal with online material or portal as well. As they have
Blogs, Web page and various other aspects. Apart from that they have a programme
called Campus Ambassador as well i.e. they appoint one student from each college as
their campus ambassador who conducts various activities like SCC OnLine orientation
and its workings in which the student gets some allowance as well.
 We also prepared a Noter-up on various cases of Landmark judgements to see what
presidential value they hold and further from the day of their judgement in what are the
cases they are referred, cited, repealed and what was the bench strength of that particular
case and what value the case holds today. Mostly I dealt with the cases of Constitutional
Law landmark judgement A.K. Gopalan v. State of Madras which was cited in more that
150 cases. There were various cases in which it was referred and various cases in which
A.K. Gopalan was considered as bad Law.

Learnings

Starting from the very beginning, I learnt about preparing case briefs and its importance. As a
law student case briefs may be required for briefing a senior advocate or searching for a point of
law. To formulate a good case brief, we need to summarise the story about how and why a
particular judgement or order was passed. The whole process of reading and judgement, then

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identifying the point of law and final summarising it into a brief had definitely incorporated the
habit of reading judgements to me. While making a case briefs, I got to know about the in-house
styling and formatting of EBC’s case briefs.

My major learning was about legal researching. Apart from making case briefs, there were many
side tasks given to me and my co-interns which were mostly intensive legal researching.
Interning at SCC Online has certainly honed and polished my legal researching skills on SCC
Database. I learnt exactly how to use a legal database, the intricacies of SCC Online and the right
way to research. I have also learned about ‘Noter-up’. It was mainly prepared to determine the
precedential value or reliability of a case law.

As my subject of interest happens to Family Law, I got an opportunity to research about latest
case laws of Family Court Act,1984. While researching the latest case laws, I came across
various case laws and each case had a different perspective and interpretation of the Family
Court Act,1984. Another interesting research work was finding whether the drivers of the cab
service independent contracts or not and who is liable for the misconduct of those drivers.

Besides research work and case briefs, I have learnt about how a company works, about office
ethics and a lot about team work. In this age of technology where nobody can leave behind their
mobile phones even for a second, in the office of SCC no-one is allowed to use mobile phones.
Initially it was a little difficult to work without our phones beside us but later it felt like normal.
The idea behind ‘No Mobile Phone’ was basically less distraction and helping the employees to
concentrate and work more efficiently.

Overall Experience

The overall experience was an eye-opener for me as I got to know about the legal world which is
learning found beyond books and classroom teachings. This internship period has taught me to
be punctual and always being attentive while in an office environment. Interning at a legal

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Research office such as SCC has shown be different aspect to Legal world. It has taught me that
apart from law firms and courtrooms there is a different and an interesting perspective of law.

The work culture at EBC is highly professional and equally welcoming. On the first day of
internship, the interns are required to sign a “non-disclosure and internet utility agreement” with
EBC. The SCC online department has very strict codes of conduct both for employees as well as
interns. On the first day, every intern is given a locker in the locker room. The use of this locker
is “to switch off mobile phone” and lock it up in the locker for the next eight hours of the day.
This was quite a challenge initially, but later I got used to it.

Teachings given by Ms. Pallavi Verma were definitely a very good learning experience and Mr.
Sumeet Malik’s immense knowledge and an experience of more than 20 years has taught me a
lot.

Overall, it has made me a more aware law-learner and has facilitated me with the opportunity to
work in professional work ethics. Being an amateur in the field of law, this internship helped me
in knowing how the legal research is done in minimum possible time. Every experience counts
and this experience has given me a deep insight into the professional world. Hence, my
experience at SCC Online has been a wonderful experience. However If you want to understand
the importance of the minute hand of the clock, then internship at EBC is recommended. One of
the best part and also the most uncomfortable part (I believe for the benefit of the interns) is the
work schedule for interns at EBC. At EBC the interns are treated at par with any other employee
of the company and therefore similar work hours have to be followed.

As mentioned earlier, EBC has a policy of calculating work hours as well so therefore, you have
to be very particular about work hours. The office works for Six days a week for eight hours (on
an average) daily. You are expected to reach at sharp 9 o’clock and cannot leave the office
before 6:00 pm. However, on Saturday interns are allowed to leave an hour early. In case you
take a leave from work (for an hour / day etc.) you have to compensate for it by working for
equal number of hours at the end of the internship. The work culture at EBC is highly
professional and equally welcoming. On the first day of internship, the interns are required to
sign a “non-disclosure and internet utility agreement” with EBC.

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The SCC online department has very strict codes of conduct both for employees as well as
interns. On the first day, every intern is given a locker in the locker room. The use of this locker
is “to switch off your indispensable mobile phone” and lock it up in the locker for the next eight
hours of the day. You also need to “lock up” any other electronic gadget that you have with you.
Moreover, you get a very comfortable location to work where the managing director, the
manager through the close circuit cameras and the two intern supervisor keep a constant watch.

Before you begin work, the manager personally introduces the interns to the two intern
supervisors who would be delegating the work for the duration of the internship. A brief
description of the organisation is given by the supervisors. The best part is that, on the First day
the editors themselves teach you how to use SCC, and other law reports and references.

The Work Environment at EBC was equally welcoming and also accommodating. Interns were
allowed to choose their lunch hours from the two available slots. People at EBC are very
welcoming and equally particular about their work. They have a sense of belongingness and a
pride in their work. An intern is treated on the same footing as any other employee with the same
rights and privileges. The supervisors were extremely co-operative and welcoming to the interns.
They allowed you to pester them with your doubts and queries regarding the delegated task.
They would teach you when you made a mistake and appreciate you when you would do the task
with dexterity and diligence. At one occasion, the managing director organised a small seminar
for the interns and researchers in his chamber where he personally taught us the idiosyncrasies of
Law reports. The lunch hour was also very enjoyable. All the employees used to have their lunch
together in the mess. You could interact with someone who knew the law reporting inside out,
you could interact with a person who has been reading Supreme Court judgments every single
day for past many years of his life. You could interact with engineers, with law students etc.
There are some places where you would like to come again. I found EBC one of those places.

Though the office is not very big in size, however, it proved quite advantageous for me, since I
got the opportunity to work under direct scrutiny of my supervisor and she was there to guide
and mentor me all the time. Because EBC is into all three- Publishing, Online Blog and Web
Edition, the versatility of tasks I got to do here could not have been possible anywhere else.
Apart from the usual case briefs (which you get to do in every law firm), I worked on the latest
edition of their in-house publishing on environment law, prepared head notes and guide notes of

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the judgments for their web edition, prepared briefs on daily notifications published by the
government, etc.

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