Throughout my years at the Bar, I attached a great deal of importance to drafting. I find drafting is one of the aspects which is not given importance. I find great satisfaction in starting with a blank sheet and then filling it with logical arguments. I believe drafting is an underplayed aspect of counsel and solicitor practice. Even as a judge, when you have a good draft before you, I am sure it makes a difference. Most judges read the papers. It has always been my endeavour to make sure that I say the maximum with the least words. The impact is in brevity. I have always believed that for something you can say in five words, you do not need twenty. I have a bad reputation on working on my drafts – correcting, recorrecting, not to aim for perfection, but to aim for the best possible way to present to the judge.
I really think that in colleges, there could be something on how to put across a proposition, how to segregate your draft into who are the parties, why you are filing proceedings, what are the brief facts, what is the law and what are you seeking. I find some drafts have missed up these points. Poor drafting disappoints me, it is hurtful. Bombay is known for proliferation in drafting, in the sense that our drafts are very long. But I try to be as precise as possible.
Today, for example, you see every paragraph in a draft stating with ‘the plaintiff says and submits’. You just switch off when you read such a draft; it is a useless, hopeless draft. Of course, the plaintiff is saying it, once you have said it at the top. People say ‘I submit’ in a witness affidavit. How can you submit in a witness affidavit? It is an affidavit of fact. People today copy the plaint very often. Things are changing, but somehow it doesn’t percolate down. Drawing up of a witness affidavit is an important aspect, a difficult aspect sometimes, because the witness has to speak to personal knowledge, or on the basis of the record and not just merely parrot for the sake of it. So how to put it across, many people do not realise. And I am sure some of the judges who deal with these must be getting very upset when they see this sort of casual drafting. You have to be precise about it.
Source: Barandbench
