Wanted to know who are the leading tax practitioners around the country, especially in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, etc. Also how does one get into these metros and do tax litigation?
You have to join a senior’s chamber and then burn the mid night oil. The names of senior advocates one generally hears are Harish Salve, Arvind Datar, S. Ganesh, S. Bagaria, Ajay Vohra, Percy Pardiwala, J Mistry and JP Khaitan. Don’t know about up coming juniors
Mumbai - Percy Pardiwalla, JD Mistry, POTUS Kaka, Farrokh Irani, K Shivaram, Vikram Nankani, V Sridharan (VS and VN do more indirect tax, but also have many direct tax matters)
Ahmedabad - Saurabh Soparkar, Tushar Hemani
Bangalore - KK Chaithanya
Kolkata - JP Khaitan
Rising Juniors (of age bracket approx 35 to 45: so those who are just on the cusp of getting really busy to those on the cusp of senior designation):
Delhi - Kamal Sawhney, Sachit Jolly, Gautam Swarup, Ananya Kapoor
I am not aware of rising Juniors in Bangalore/Ahd/Kolkata. There will be some, but none that I know of.
So you will think that there's a fair bit of options. The problem is that practically all the quality work is with one of these names... So come to think of it, not so many options then, if this is the entire pool...
In Kolkata JP Khaitan and Abhratosh Majumdar are the most prominent Senior Advocates. They do both direct and indirect tax matters. There is also Samir Chakraborty (also a Sr Adv) who mainly appears in indirect tax matters. The leading juniors are Saurabh Bagaria, Arijit Chakraborty, Avra Majumdar, Pratyush Jhunjhunwala, Ankit Kanodia and Pranit Bag. There is another advocate- Sudhir Mehta who is not a designated senior but has a strong customs law practice.
If getting into tax lit is what you want, then don't worry about joining people/firms with quality/high-end/famous matters. The learning curve is quite steep. Start at any place that is willing to give a raw fresher with some tax internships a chance. It will take you some time to get a hang of things, esp the fact that you need to learn basic accounts+tax+ admin/consti law at the same go along with general rigmarole of litigation world
Established Seniors:
Delhi - Arvind Datar, Ajay Vohra, Preetesh Kapur, S Ganesh, Salil Kapoor, RV Easwar
Mumbai - Percy Pardiwalla, JD Mistry, POTUS Kaka, Farrokh Irani, K Shivaram, Vikram Nankani, V Sridharan (VS and VN do more indirect tax, but also have many direct tax matters)
Ahmedabad - Saurabh Soparkar, Tushar Hemani
Bangalore - KK Chaithanya
Kolkata - JP Khaitan
Rising Juniors (of age bracket approx 35 to 45: so those who are just on the cusp of getting really busy to those on the cusp of senior designation):
Delhi - Kamal Sawhney, Sachit Jolly, Gautam Swarup, Ananya Kapoor
Mumbai - Nishant Thakker, Nitesh Joshi, Sunil Lala, Madhur Agarwal, Mihir Naniwadekar, Harsh Kapadia, Rahul Sarda, Dharan Gandhi, Devendra Jain
I am not aware of rising Juniors in Bangalore/Ahd/Kolkata. There will be some, but none that I know of.
So you will think that there's a fair bit of options. The problem is that practically all the quality work is with one of these names... So come to think of it, not so many options then, if this is the entire pool...