partner hires

Fox Mandal Noida projects partner Rajesh Sehgal has quit the firm to move in-house to Singapore, reported Bar & Bench, reducing the number of non-family partners at the firm to three - Swati Sinha, Jyoti Virmani and Veronica Mohan - after departures of corporate partners Dev Ashish Mishra and Sudish Sharma last year.

Sehgal declined to comment to Bar & Bench but confirmed his departure. In respect of information from the website's sources that the firm still owed former and current staff money, as first reported in Legally India since 2009, Delhi-area managing partner Som Mandal said: "We don’t owe any money to anyone who has left recently." [Bar & Bench].

Former KPMG partner Gautam Chemburkar joined Khaitan & Co as its first ever executive director strategy on 3 April.

AZB & Partners Delhi partner and capital markets practice head Meera Singh has resigned the firm, according to Bar & Bench. Singh told the website that she was leaving for personal reasons and would continue to work flexibly with the firm on individual assignments.

Delhi managing partner Ajay Bahl also confirmed her move, saying that she would continue to be a "valued colleague and a dear friend" to him and others at the firm. She had been at Bahl's firm since 2001, having worked at New Delhi Law Offices for seven years after graduating from Campus Law Centre. [Bar & Bench]

Yesterday Legally India reported that Khaitan & Co Mumbai capital markets partner Vibhava Sawant had left the firm for personal reasons, and last year, Luthra capital markets head Madhurima Mukherjee left the firm.

Khaitan & Co Mumbai capital markets partner of six years Vibhava Sawant left the firm on 11 April to relocate to Abu Dhabi to be with family.

Homegrown Luthra & Luthra Mumbai partner Shishir Jose Vayttaden has resigned from the firm.

Vaishali Sharma, the Khaitan & Co lateral partner who left the firm last week, has now hired three associates and won her first instructions.

Clasis Law, the best friend law firm of UK-international firm Clyde & Co, has hired Ashwin Sapra to head up its intellectual property (IP) and healthcare practice.

Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan (LKS) partner and head of indirect tax litigation Madhav Rao joined BMR Legal in Delhi as partner on 1 April, handling indirect tax litigation.

Khaitan & Co hired two salaried partners and one counsel, with nine years of experience, in its capital markets and the energy and infrastructure practices across Delhi and Mumbai.

Trilegal has hired Deloitte counsel Himanshu S Sinha as a partner in its direct tax practice in Delhi and promoted infrastructure counsel Neeraj Menon to its partnership.

Khaitan & Co partner Vaishali Sharma, who joined in 2010 from AZB & Partners, has quit the firm.

Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi partner Pooja Mahajan, who was promoted in 2013 after joining the firm in 2007, has resigned, telling legal website Bar & Bench that she had not yet made up her mind on her next move, but might teach for a while or do a PhD.

Amarchand Delhi managing partner Shardul Shroff told B&B that he wished her well, and that she would go abroad to study, travel, study Indian music and teach law. Mahajan holds a 2004 undergrad from Delhi University and a 2007 LLM from Oxford University. [Bar & Bench]

One of IndusLaw's co-founding partners, Tapas Misra, who became an of counsel at the firm 18 months ago and headed up its tax practice, has left with his team of two to start a tax boutique firm in Noida on 1 March.

Five lawyers from HSA Advocates, J Sagar Associates (JSA), Luthra & Luthra, AZB & Partners and Zeus IP have started Delhi firm Jupiter Law Partners.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) has hired Bharti Airtel general counsel Jyoti Pawar to head its telecommunications, media and technology practice (TMT) in Delhi.

Former Luthra & Luthra Delhi corporate partner Anil Kumar Rai will be joining NLU Delhi as a visiting professor.

Luthra and Luthra Delhi general corporate partner Prof Anil Kumar Rai left the firm on Friday, after the headcount of the team he was heading at the firm gradually shrunk over the last few months.

Advani & Co litigation partner Shashank Garg has left the firm to join Delhi litigation firm Suri & Co as partner.

Madras HC 12-judge-names appeal: The Madras HC through its registrar general will move the SC against its own division bench decision that had stayed the appointment of the 12 recommended Madras HC advocates as judges whose recommendations has courted controversy at the HC [TOI]

Madras HC advocates against opacity, subjectivity in judge selection: Madras High Court Advocates Association President RC Paul Kanagaraj says that in the absence of transparency in the collegium process the judges panel recommending names for judgeships is easily prone to favouritism. Kanagaraj is opposed by a faction of lawyers of the HC who feel that consulting bar associations is a process prone to subjectivity and not entirely fair [New Indian Express]

Delhi needs 100 more judges: Delhi law minister Somnath Bharti has advised the Delhi HC to recruit 100 judges for various courts in the capital [Business Standard]. Last year Legally India reported how the Delhi district judges recruitment machinery falls remarkably short of the need faced in the capital.

Delhi gets 47 new courts: Delhi HC chief justice NV Ramana today ordered setting up of 47 new courts in the capital. The new courts, which will come up in six district court complexes from January 15, will deal with heinous crimes, civil cases, and motor accident claims [PTI]

MMB Legal first partner: Wipro senior corporate counsel Sonal Basu joined former MMB Legal partner Talha Salaria’s Bangalore-based start-up L.A.W as a partner. Basu, who has had stints at JSA Bangalore and at Nokia, will focus on L.A.W’s Information Technology/ITeS and telecom practices [Bar & Bench]

3 new Kerala HC judges: Kerala high court additional judges, justices Babu Mathew P Joseph, Ambazhavelil Velayudhan Pillai Ramakrishna Pillai and Pannipuzhayil Divakaran Rajan have become permanent judges in that HC [Net Indian]

Karnataka Lokayukta on anti-corruption cell: Karnataka’s Lokayukta Justice Y Bhaskar Rao has written to Karnataka HC Chief Justice D H Waghela seeking intervention in helping the general public file complaints before the state’s anti-corruption cell with support from the Karnataka Legal Services Authority and legal volunteers under it in rural areas [TOI]

Slow special child abuse case disposal law: “More than a year after Parliament passed a special law to ensure the speedy disposal of cases of child abuse, just 38 of over a thousand cases filed in Maharashtra have been disposed of with only nine convictions,” reports [DNA India]

Useful ordinance? 1/615: Out of 615 ordinances promulgated in India between 1958 and 2006, the only one justifiable ordinance is the one introduced by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai in 1978—where currency notes in denominations ofRs.1,000/5,000/10,000 were demonetized—because they thought it was one way of dealing with corruption and inflation, according to a study conducted by  NUJS Kolkata graduate and Singapore Managment University assistant professor Shubhankar Dam [Mint]