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According to a Right to Information (RTI) response received and reported by Bar & Bench, between 1990 and 2016, the Karnataka Water Resources Department has spent at least Rs 37.5 crore on around 20 lawyers representing it in disputes such as the Cauvery battle, of which 91% (or Rs 34.22 crore) were billed by five senior lawyers alone.

Nishi Ankita Kujur, “a third year law student of National Law School of India University committed suicide by hanging in her hostel room of the university, on Tuesday. Nishi (20) was a native of Jharkhand,” reported the Deccan Herald and Eenadu India.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas has promoted Arjun Ghose, Shruti Kanodia, Nitesh Jain and Manjari Tyagi to partner.

A petition of 57 aspiring national law school students are set to get their first hearing before the Allahabad high court tomorrow (17 November), with advocate Sushmita Mukherjee challenging the Bar Council of India (BCI) and Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) age limit of 20 years.

"Square Yards Consulting Pvt. Ltd, a real estate listings and advisory firm, has raised $12 million from the private equity arm of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group,” reported Mint.

NUJS Kolkata’s chancellor, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur, has signed off on a resolution to institute a judicial review commission at the university, according to campus sources with knowledge of the development.

SunEdison India general counsel (GC) and director legal of six years, Vinay Bhatia, has joined the IL&FS Financial Services as its new general counsel based in Chennai.

"A week after the Essar group signed a mega $12.9bn deal to sell Essar Oil and Vadinar Port to Rosneft of Russia, three banks — ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Standard Chartered Bank — have received over $2.5bn (around Rs 16,750 crore) from the Essar group towards repayment of loans to Essar Global,” reported the Indian Express.

Kochhar & Co added ALMT Legal partner Gautam Bhatikar as a senior partner and co-head of the Mumbai office of the firm. Bhatikar has joined the firm with ALMT senior associate Zoeb Cutlerywala.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, together with justices PC Pant and UU Lalit, issued a contempt notice on retired Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju in a review petition in the Soumya murder case to which Gogoi had last month surprisingly invited Katju to argue in.

The seven largest law firms in India have grown their headcounts by an average of around 20% in the last one-and-a-half years. Of those, the fastest-growing such as Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Khaitan & Co, had expanded fee-earner headcounts by 45% and 35% respectively, while others such as AZB & partners’ partnership ballooned by 75%.

The Supreme Court is close to banning the sale of firecrackers in Delhi, as it today said it will soon pass an order prohibiting the licensing authority for the sale of firecrackers from issuing new licenses. It will also ask the authority to suspend existing licenses and to recall the existing stock of firecrackers with sellers.

"Detergent major Nirma, which in July had agreed to buy the cement business of the French major Lafarge India, today raised Rs 4,000 crore debt to fund the deal, making it the largest rupee bond sale for a leveraged buyout,” reported Money Control.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) added former Ashurst London senior associate Akshay Kishore as an associate partner in Mumbai.

"In one of the largest deals in the retail real estate market in India, Dutch pension fund asset manager APG Asset Management and Virtuous Retail, the retail development arm of The Xander Group, have partnered to form a joint venture worth $450m, the companies said in a statement,” reported VC Circle.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) Chennai head and partner Karthik Sundaram left the firm on 14 October to go into counsel practice, around 14 days after former managing partner Rohan Shah formally retired from the firm to become a counsel.