Following his victory on Monday in the Delhi high court, co-founding partner and de facto reinstated senior partner of L&L Partners, Mohit Saraf, has responded in kind to his co-founder Rajiv Luthra with a newspaper notice that of the favourable judgment and warning the public that the public should “exercise caution in dealing with Mr. Rajiv Luthra”.

The public notice, which we understand was published in the Times of India today as well as probably in other newspapers, was made under the L&L Partners logo, and stated:

PUBLIC NOTICE

On 16 October 2020, Mr. Rajiv Luthra issued a public notice to the effect that I, Mohit Saraf, Founder and Senior Partner, was no longer a partner of L&L Partners (formerly Luthra & Luthra Law Offices).

Mr. Rajiv Luthra had also attempted to expel me from the firm and sought to appropriate for himself its various assets, including bank accounts. The Hon’ble Delhi High Court vide its detailed judgment in OMP(I)(COMM) 339 of 2020 dated 18 January 2021 has stayed Mr Luthra’s actions which were held to be in violation of the partnership deed and the Partnership Act, 1932.

Operation of this direction is in abeyance till 22 January 2021. The detailed 148 page judgement of the Hon’ble Court is available at http://164.100.69.66/jsearch/ (judgment section on the website of Delhi High Court).

In these circumstances, members of the public should exercise caution in dealing with Mr. Rajiv Luthra and not rely on his misrepresentations. Any person dealing solely with Rajiv Luthra in relation to the affairs or assets of the partnership firm do so at their own risk.

Mohit Saraf, Shaurya Chakra

(National Peacetime Gallantry Award)

Founder and Senior Partner.

Saraf’s newspaper notice, follows a similar notice by Luthra on 16 October 2020.

In particular, the last paragraph is almost a verbatim mirror of Luthra’s notice, which had warned “members of the public who deal with Mr Saraf treating him as a representative or acting on behalf of L&L Partners in any capacity, do so at their own risk as to costs and consequences. L&L Partners takes no liability for the same.

Reuters journalist Aditya Kalra had tweeted Saraf’s notice today:

The fight between senior partners at one of India’s top law firms, L&L, has now made it to a newspaper “public notice” ad advising caution. Ugly.

— Aditya Kalra (@adityakalra) Wed, 20 Jan 2021, 08:01