Moily told Kolkata-based broadsheet The Telegraph in an interview published yesterday: "Once our lawyers are trained to be the best… they can capture the global legal market.

"Issues such as entry of foreign lawyers into India will then become irrelevant."

He did not elaborate on the precise steps and timescales needed to improve the training of lawyers. A total of 15 and 25 of India's law schools were ranked last week by two national magazines.

"We will become world leaders in the legal field, like we are in IT," Moily explained to the paper, adding: "Bangalore became an IT hub after the quality of engineering education was improved in Karnataka."

"If I have my way," he added, "India will become the resource reservoir of the global legal fraternity."

Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto hit the headlines last week when it saved $1m in little more than a month by outsourcing its legal work to a Delhi-based legal process outsourcing centre.

Several international law firms such as Clifford Chance also operate sizable offshore legal centres in India, to provide paralegal and low-level legal services to clients at a lower cost.

Moily also spoke to the Telegraph of tackling social equality and corruption in the judiciary.

Since taking the post Moily has publicly made statements in favour of liberalisation although his first meeting with the Bar Council on 8 June did not suggest that an agreement would be reached soon.