Centre for Public Health Law

School of Law, Christ University, Bangalore was adjudged the winner of the competition and Tamil Nadu National Law University was the runners up. Award for best memorial was bagged by Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law and the Best Speaker award was given to Saurabh Bharadwaj of VES Law College, Mumbai. A total of Rs. 56,000/- cash prizes will be awarded to the winners. The inaugural, valedictory ceremony and the moot court rounds witness the dignitaries like Mr. Warren Bruke, Senior Attorney, United States House of Representatives, Office of Legislative Counsel, Senior Supreme Advocate Anand Grover, President of PHFI Prof. K. Srinath Reddy, Prof. Ved Kumari, Vice Chancellor and Prof. Yogesh Pratap Singh, Registrar, National Law University Odisha

As rising tobacco consumption in the country has been rising the competition aimed at touching the sensitive issues of health and economy. There is already a petition pending in Supreme Court in India to increase the age of tobacco consumption and banning the sale of tobacco near religious institutions, schools and hospitals. The aim of the competition was to sensitise the students on this newly emerging area of academia and practice, which the competition was successful at achieving.

Vaccines promise a hope to end the pandemic. But the limitations on manufacturing capabilities amidst a web of intellectual property and reluctance of pharam companies to share the technology have raised concerns about negative impact of IP in access to medicines. To know the nitty-gritty’s of these issues, CPHL is hosted a two day lecture series by

Shantanu Mukherjee. He is the founder of Ronin Legal, a boutique legal practice that focuses on healthcare, technology, M&A and corporate advisory.

Shantanu is a New York and India qualified lawyer, with an LL.M from Columbia Law School, New York, and a B.A, LL.B (with a gold medal in Intellectual Property law) from National Law School of India University. He’s lived and worked around the world: with Linklaters in New York, White & Case in Singapore, Goodwin Procter in Hong Kong and as Global GC of a commodities/energy group in Dubai. In India, he’s been Global Legal Head for M&A at Cipla, and Regional GC for APAC and Japan at Lupin. He began his career in Luthra & Luthra’s M&A team in Delhi, in 2002. He has two decades of experience managing complex and high-value transactions, including cross-border M&A, joint ventures, insolvency restructuring, structured finance and intellectual property licensing.

He actively writes and teaches in his free time. He is offering a full credit course on Healthcare Law at NLU Delhi, has taught at Singapore Management University and Mallya Aditya School, and been published in, among others, India Business Law Journal, news18.com and The Quint. He also has a monthly column in the SCC Online Blog’s “Experts Corner” (https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/category/experts_corner/shantanu-mukherjee/).

Mr Grover was the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (Right to Health) by the UN Human Rights Council from August 2008 to July 2014.

The course is held in virtual mode with online classes being held on every Friday, Saturday and Sundays.Ms. Nanditta Batra, Faculty Co-Director, Centre for Public Health Law, NLUO is coordinating the course.

The Centre for Public Health Law organised a virtual guest lecture on Health Policies and Systems. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Chandrakant Lahriya. Dr Lahriya is a physician-epidemiologist and a public policy and health systems expert and co-author of “Till We Win: India’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic”. Dr Lahriya talked about the conceptual understanding of policy, law and regulations particualry in the context of health. He weaved a seamless fabric of history of health policies in India and discussed in detail the key features of National Health Policy, 2017. He also explained the need for having a ‘Universal Health Coverage’ and lamented that in India 60% of medical expenditure of out of the pocket whereas in the recommended level is around 20%. The financial burden is significant in accessing healthcare facilities. The lecture was followed by an interactive question answer session which was moderated by Ms. Nanditta Batra, Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director, Centre for Public Health Law, NLUO. The lecture can be accessed here.

The Centre successfully conducted India’s first public health moot. The four day long 1st NLUO PHFI Public Health Law National Moot Court Competition was he moot was focused on the issue of compulsory vaccination and immunity to vaccine developers and manufacturers along with ancillary issues of federalism in the context of Public Health. 62 teams from National Law Universities, Central and State Government Law Department’s, Private Law Universities and law colleges from the length and breadth of the country participated in the moot.  The final round was judged by eminent legal luminaries and public health experts including Mr. Anand Grover, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, India’s leading virologist and Professor, CMC Vellore,  Mr. Murali Neelkanthan, Partner, Amicus, Mr. Sameer Sah, Partner, Khaitan & CO and Mr. Warren Bruke, Senior Attorney, United States House of Representatives, Office of Legislative Counsel.

The final rounds were followed by a grand valedictory ceremony which was graced by Hon’ble Justice Mr Sanjeeb Panigrahi, Judge, Orissa High Court as the Chief Guest and Dr. K Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India as Guest of Honor, Prof Ved Kumari, Vice -Chancellor, NLUO, Prof. (Dr.) Yogesh Pratap Singh, Registrar, NLUO, Prof. Shifalika Goenka, Professor PHFI  and the finalist judges.

Government Law College, Mumbai won the competition. They also won the citation for ‘Best Memorial’. NALSAR Hyderabad was declared as Runner up and Anshika Paul of Government Law College, Trivandrum was adjudicated the ‘Best Speaker’. Finals and valedictory can be watched here.

A webinar on The Role of Public Health Law in Cancer Prevention was organised by the centre on 12^th May, 2021 in association with PHFI. The webinar was organized to critically analyse the role of law in cancer prevention and to foster discussion amongst different stakeholders on the same.

Speakers at the event included:

·         Dr. Sharmila Pimple, Professor & Physician ‘G’ Dept. of Preventive Oncology Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai.

·         Dr. Majid Ahmad Talikoti, Sr. Consultant & Head, Surgical Oncology, Batra Hospital, New Delhi

·         Mr. David Patterson, Faculty of Law, University of Groningen

·         ShifalikaGoenka, Professor, Head Bioethics and Social and Behavioral Sciences, Public Health Foundation of India

·         Dr. Amit Yadav, Senior technical adviser, International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union)

·         Dr Shipra Gahlot, MBBS. DNB (Internal Medicine), Consultant Physician, Health Care Clinic, Ex S.R Nephrology, Vivekananda polyclinic & Institute of medical sciences, Lucknow

·         Dr Nandini Vallath, MBBS, MD, Clinical Consultant: Palliative Care, BARC Hospital. Honorary Consultant: Palliative Care and Div. Of Med. Humanities, KEM Hospital, Parel, Mumbai. Consultant: Palliative Care Division, National Cancer Grid

Webinar can be watched here.

A national expert consultation was organised on the draft Cigarette and the other Tobacco Products Act Amendment Bill 2020 on 27^th January, 2021 in collaboration with The Union. The Centre submitted comments on the same to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Experts at the event included:

·         The Chief Guest, Hon’ble Mr. Justice SanjeebKuamrPanigrahi, Judge High Court of Orissa

·         Dr. Rana J Singh, Executive Director, The Union, South East Asia Office New Delhi

·         Dr. Monika Arora, Director, Health Protection Division, Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi

·         Dr. Amit Yadav, Sr. Technical Advisor Tobacco Control, The Union, South East Asia Office New Delhi

·         Dr. Meenakshi Sachidhanandam, Expert Public Health Law

Consultation can be watched here.