Khaitan & Co has hired PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) director Abhishek Rastogi and associate director Rashmi Deshpande into its indirect tax practice in Mumbai.

Both, who work together at PwC, will join Khaitan around November, with Rastogi starting as an executive director and Deshpande joining as an associate partner.

Rastogi began his career at Ernst & Young in 2000, moving to PwC in 2004, and has written 8 books on service tax and Goods and Services Tax (GST). He qualified as a chartered accountant in 2004 and as a lawyer from Delhi University’s Law Faculty in 2011, also holding a Bachelor of Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce.

Deshpande holds a 2006 LLB from ILS Pune, beginning her career at BMR, followed by KPMG in 2010, and PwC in 2011.

Khaitan HR head Amar Sinhji confirmed the hires when contacted, and commented: “Very privileged to welcome Abhishek and Rashmi to the firm. They will add a lot of value to an established practice (indirect tax) and help take it to the next level.

“This is part of the firm’s overall strategy to beef up some of our practices at a national level. We will look at increasing our strength in Delhi too.”

The tax practice had consisted of eight partners, he added. Three partners were in indirect tax - Nihal Kothari, Dinesh Agrawal and Arvind Baheti - with associate partner Kabir Bogra, while three partners and one associate partner were focused exclusively on direct tax work.

The indirect tax hires follow Khaitan very recently ramping up in capital markets with K Law’s Delhi partner Gautham Srinivas.

We have reached out to PwC for comment.

The Big Four accountant had scored a coup in 2014 with EY India executive director Amit Bhagat and his team of 12 joining its tax practice.