IndusLaw has moved into a larger Mumbai office and has worked at immediately filling the space: HSA Advocates litigation partners Amit Jajoo and Sushmita Gandhi will be joining with their team of six fee-earners.

Jajoo and Gandhi had joined HSA in 2016 as partner and associate partner respectively from Paras Kuhad & Associates, with Gandhi getting promoted to partner a year later.

Jajoo, who will the most senior litigator in Indus’ Mumbai office, commented: “We are primarily into a lot of general civil litigations, we are doing a lot of IBC matters, banking litigations, one of the biggest IPR litigations with respect to patent violations, and a few [large] infrastructure arbitrations.”

They will grow Indus’ litigation strength to three partners in Mumbai, alongside partner Swapnil Khatri.

Jajoo and Gandhi’s team also includes two senior associates - Victor Basu and Bhagyashree Lembhe - and and four associates - Anamika, Amrita Dubey, Bhargav Kosuru and Darpan Bhatia.

Jajoo is a 2004 GLC Mumbai graduate, who had worked at NC Dalal followed by Paras Kuhad; Gandhi is a 2007 Symbiosis Pune graduate, with the beginning of her career including Kotak Mahindra and Phoenix ARC, before joining Paras Kuhad in 2009.

Jajoo said, having practised in Mumbai for 15 years, that its litigation market has continued to be relevant, being both the financial capital and also with the increasing importance of the insolvency code.

“[Most] big matters and arbitrations are broadly being filed here, which of course eventually end up in SC. But the Bombay market has been growing and we have been growing with it, and looking forward to good further growth in the next five years.”

HSA founding partner Hemant Sahai commented: “I wish them all the best and my sincere appreciation for their contributions to the firm.

“We had, some time ago, started re-calibrating our strategy to shift our focus away from high volume low margin litigation practice and that strategy is working for us.”

Larger office

Earlier this month, Indus has also moved into a larger office space on the 15th floor of the One Indiabulls building in Lower Parel.

At around 5,000 square feet, it “comfortably” had space for around 50 people, said Indus co-founding partner Suneeth Katarki.

With the new joiners, Mumbai would consist of around 35 lawyers (we had reported yesterday that Mumbai corporate/real-estate/employment partner Vivek Daswaney and his team of three had left to re-start V Law Partners).

Its Mumbai office would now have three corporate partners and three litigation partners.

Expansion focus

While Bangalore remained Indus’ main litigation hub - despite some flux and a promotion following senior partner V Srinivasa Raghvan becoming a senior counsel Katarki noted that the firm had also “significantly” grown its litigation offerings in Delhi and Mumbai.

“We’re definitely looking to expand in Mumbai at a good pace, without compromising quality of people,” he added about expansion plans, that would also include the corporate practice. “We have a fairly good client base and are in fact looking to service that client base out of Bombay.”