partnership promotions

MV Kini partner Shrikant Kamath, who joined in 2012 to start its tax practice, left last week but is replaced by principal associate Prateush Sharma.

NLSIU Bangalore, Delhi University (DU), GLC Mumbai and ILS Pune have given India’s biggest law firms more than three times as many partners than most other younger law schools since 2009.

Corporate principal associate Ashish Razdan and banking and finance principal associate Kumar Saurabh Singh have been promoted.

K&S Partners – the intellectual property outfit of J Sagar Associates (JSA) – promoted three senior associates in its Gurgaon office to partnership effective 1 April 2013.

Luthra & Luthra has promoted two M&A and private equity lawyers – Damini Bhalla and Amit Shetye – to its partnership, as the firm has widened its executive committee and management outlined a strategic vision to ditch lower margin work and eschew big headcounts.

Fox Mandal promoted two new partners in Delhi effective 1 July, reported legal website Bar & Bench.

Corporate litigation and dispute resolution chief associate Veronica Mohan, who joined the firm in December 2010, was promoted to the partnership. She graduated from ILS Pune in 1996. General corporate, M&A and private equity chief associate Jyoti Virmani who joined the firm in 2007 was also elevated to partner. She enrolled at the bar in 2003.

DSK Legal promoted Munaf Virjee, Sagar Kadam and Maneesh Upadhyay as associate partners in its Mumbai office [Bar & Bench]

Permanent constitution bench: Chief Justice of India-designate P Sathasivam has advocated a permanent Constitution Bench for “authoritative pronouncements” on issues such as mercy pleas, to avoid conflicting views by smaller benches [NIE]

P&H Uncles: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has at least nine judges whose kin are appointed as law officers in Punjab and Haryana. The Haryana Lokpal and retired judges too have relatives in the offices of Punjab and Haryana Advocates-General [Tribune]

Hindu isn’t: The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to respond to a plea seeking deletion of a provision in the Constitution that treats Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists as Hindus for all legal purposes [BS]

CJI musical chairs: Sticking to the seniority rule has reduced the top judicial post in the country to a quick game of musical chairs, with one Chief Justice after another going through the motions without getting a chance to set their house in order, pendency mounts and allegations of corruption increase, argues the ET

GNLU court manag’t RTI: Kalpeshkumar Gupta, who is a GNLU Gandhinagar PhD student and an IIM Ahmedabad academic associate, has applied to the state RTI commissioner saying the Gujarat high court authorities have violated the Right to Information Act 2005, by barring information related to marks obtained by candidates in the screening test during the recruitment of court managers [DNA India]

Kelley Drye has promoted NLSIU Bangalore graduate Deepak Nambiar to its partnership in New York.

Amarchand Mangaldas has made 13 new partners this year, with seven in Delhi and five in Mumbai.

Trilegal did not make any new partners this year but promoted senior associates Upasana Rao and Nitish Nair to counsel in Delhi. There were no promotions to counsel in the Mumbai region.

Khaitan & Co promos Abhishek Sharma & Avaantika Kakkar to equity in Mumbai, hires start-up litigator Rahul Sahay in Delhi.

Rachit Bahl, Nandita Govind and Ritika Rathi make salaried partner Delhi; Nilanjana Singh, Nandish Vyas confirmed in Mumbai.

Four promoted internally as ex-FF consultant Priya Christian joined as a retained competition partner.

Remfry & Sagar has created a pre-partnership career rung, promoting four managing associates into the partner-designate position effective from 1 April 2013.

Krishnamurthy & Co hopes to attract more UK and European clients from London.

Clasis has promoted one to partner, and one lawyer to Mumbai as senior associate.

LKS elevated lit practice head to partnership yesterday and hiked base pay.

India group managing associate promo’d.