Internship Experience at Odisha Human Rights Commission by Amrit Behera

Name, college, year of study of the student intern

I am Amrit Behera, a 3^rd year BA LLB student at Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad.

Name of the Organization

OHRC- Odisha Human Rights Commission

Duration of the Internship

One month (17.03.2021- 16.04.2021)

How did you apply?

I asked my college to provide me with a recommendation letter for this internship. And I produced the letter at the office of OHRC. As per the vacancy they provided me with the internship.

Work profile/ main tasks

Case Reading

Every Wednesday, after attending the court, we used to get a chance in which all the interns were allowed to have one on one discussions with the judges of the Odisha Human Rights court that was Shri Asim Amitabh Dash and Shri Justice Bijoy Krishna Patel. They taught me the major important cases of the Odisha High Court. They taught us the importance of listening to the client and listening to the opposition party in a court of law.

They taught me the art of drafting and how well drafting can be done. Some of the case laws that he taught me were MC Mehta v. Union of India, 1986 (Right to life) (Bhopal gas tragedy case), Sarla Mudgal Union of India, 1995 (Women’s Rights), National Legal Service Authority v. Union Of India, 2014 (Transgender).

One of the important cases that they gave me to read was about the shifting of the High Court of Odisha from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar.

In this case, the case was filed by the petitioner on the topic that the location of the High Court cannot be shifted from one city to another. The judgment said that the High Court is a temple for the advocates and the temple cannot be shifted from one place to another.

And hence though the Capital of the state was shifted from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar the location of the high court cannot be shifted.

Research

They asked to do complete detailed research on the topic of “The Importance of Human Rights” and “Conviction in cases of rape may be based purely on the evidence of the prosecutrix even without corroboration. An in-depth analysis with recent land-mark judgment”.

During the time period of my research, Shri Asim Amitabh Dash and Shri Justice Bijoy Krishna Patel helped me a lot. They provided me with a detailed history of this and also provided recent data and statistics which helped me to conduct my research in a smooth manner.

Interaction with Lawyers

I also enjoyed interacting with lawyers during my internship I managed to meet several advocates who seemed friendly. I asked them for any advice they could give me and if the bar course was hard as regards the bar course they all said it was hard and needed a lot of effort some even went ahead to give me advice to go and do it from other east African countries since there I had a better chance on the advice. I was given a lot but all in all the point I picked out was to work hard prepare well and be honest.

The judges of the court also introduced us to a lawyer who has been actively working as human rights activist for the last 25 years. And seminar was also conducted by them in which the importance of human rights was told to us.

Work Environment

The work environment was awesome as all the heads of the organization were very frank to ask them about anything related to an internship or about the difficulty in the tasks, they helped interns with citations, research methods and many such things. All were helping persons, and as there was social work also, all interns were get chance to do some social duties also through the internship.

Good Things

The best part of this internship was that all the interns got the opportunity to interact with the judge of OHRC. This helped us a lot to learn from them.

Bad Things

There were no such bad things in this internship.

Stipend (if any)

No stipend was provided.

The report submitted to Odisha Human Rights Commission by Amrit Behera is attached here.