This year's edition is structured as a simulated trial under the Rome Statute framework, with the moot proposition built around the theme of accountability of judicial and quasi-judicial institutions in aiding the commission of crimes prohibited under international law. Participating teams will argue both the prosecution and defence sides across preliminary, quarterfinal, semifinal and final rounds, with separate scoring for memorials and oral advocacy.

This Year's Theme

The 2026 proposition asks participants to interrogate the part judicial and quasi-judicial bodies can play, wittingly or otherwise, in enabling state power to override the core tenets of international criminal law. Rather than treating courts and tribunals as neutral arbiters, the theme pushes teams to examine how such institutions may end up legitimising or facilitating conduct that itself amounts to an international crime, raising questions of individual criminal responsibility for judicial actors and of institutional complicity more broadly.

Framed within the Rome Statute's rules of procedure and evidence, the problem is designed to test both substantive command of international criminal law and procedural rigour, with a particular emphasis on cross-examination as an advocacy skill. Organisers describe the 2026 edition as building on nine years of the competition's tradition of engaging students with the discipline's evolving jurisprudence and its unresolved tensions between legal authority and accountability.

A Decade of Justified

The competition traces its roots to 2015, when the Moot Court Society first launched Justified as a national-level moot. It was instituted in its present memorial form in 2018 by Senior Advocate Mr. Sacchin Puri in honour of his late father, Shri S.K. Puri, a first-generation lawyer who rose from the Tis Hazari courts to become a Senior Advocate designate of the Delhi High Court and a two-term Honorary Secretary of the Delhi High Court Bar Association.

The competition went international in 2019, drawing teams from across South Asia to argue questions of refugee law and public international law, and has since been judged by sitting and retired judges of the Delhi High Court, including Justices Siddharth Mridul, Prathiba M. Singh, Mini Pushkarna, Talwant Singh and Subramonium Prasad, among others. Past champions include National Law University Delhi, Jindal Global Law School, IFIM Law School Bengaluru, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar National Law University Sonipat and, in the most recent 2025 edition, Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi.

Format and Key Dates

Final registration for teams closes on 21 September 2026, with the schedule running as follows:

● Last date for seeking clarifications: 16 October 2026

● Release of clarifications: 23 October 2026

● Memorial submission deadline: 7 November 2026

● Oral rounds: 20 to 22 November 2026

Prizes

The competition carries a total prize pool of Rs. 2,11,000. The winning team receives Rs. 51,000, the runners-up Rs. 40,000 and the second runners-up Rs. 25,000. Separate awards worth Rs. 20,000 each go to the best prosecution, defence and state memorials, with further prizes for the best advocate in the final and preliminary rounds and for the best witness.

For further details, teams may write to skpurimoot.lc2@gmail.com or follow the Moot Court Society, Law Centre-II on Instagram at @mcs_lc2.