Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF)

Prof (Justice) Avadh Behari Rohatgi – father of senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi – was posthumously awarded the SILF-MILAT Distinguished Law Teacher Award 2013 on 1 September, at the “fifth law teacher’s day” celebrated by the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) and NLSIU Bangalore founder Prof Madhav Menon’s Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training (MILAT).

Seedling School of Law & Governance Jaipur director Prof VS Mani was awarded the “SILF-MILAT Prof NR Madhava Menon Best Law Teacher Award 2013”, Amity University Law School Noida and ILS Law College Pune were awarded the “SILF-MILAT Institutional Leadership Award 2013”, NLSIU Bangalore Prof Ashok R Patil was awarded the “SILF-MILAT Education Innovation Award 2013”, and NLSIU’s Jessup 2013 winning team was awarded the “SILF MILAT Best Law Student Award 2013”, according to a press release from SILF-MILAT.

ILS Pune had also been felicitated by the BCI as one of India’s five “outstanding law colleges” in its golden jubilee celebrations in February.

The “law symposium” presided over by Supreme Court justice Madan Lokur raised a discussion on institutionalised structures that will help fulfil “the need for court mangers to focus on the twin issues of making judicial administration as well as support system administration in courts more efficient and litigant friendly in order to cut delays and speed up disposal of cases,” stated the release.

Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra in an insightful interview with legal website Bar & Bench reiterated his strong opposition to the entry of foreign law firms, noted that the BCI had been cancelling licenses for around 10 law schools per meeting, expressed a grouse against law teachers and promised to bring law firm misconduct under the BCI’s scanner with the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF).

In today’s edition of Mint: The finance ministry’s latest concession on service tax imposed on lawyers that was notified in June has been welcomed by some; others continue to say it wasn’t enough and many remained unaware of the current law and how, or if at all, they had to pay this tax.

Contrary to the approach taken by the Bar Council of India (BCI), foreign lawyers should be allowed to fly into India temporarily to advise clients and assist in arbitrations, decided the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) in its general board meeting on Saturday, while noting that chartered accountants have been flouting the rules.

The Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) pledged its support for senior advocate Fali S Nariman to become president of India, in a press release yesterday.

Breaking: Fees earned by lawyers in courts or tribunals will not be subject to service tax under the Union Budget, which expanded the overall scope of service tax to everything except for a few exceptions.

Exclusive: Current NLU Delhi vice chancellor Professor (Dr) Ranbir Singh will be honoured with this year’s Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) Madhava Menon law teacher of the year award, while the Goa-based Salgaocar College of Law has been chosen for the institutional excellence award.

Exclusive: The Bar Council of India (BCI) is to take 20 lawyers on secondment from law firms to help it regulate transactional law practice better, said BCI chairman Gopal Subramanium and Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) chairman Lalit Bhasin on Friday.

Exclusive: Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) chairman Lalit Bhasin has condemned the expanded service tax rules on law firms, saying that SILF and other law firms would file a new writ petition against the changes while the existing writ petition remained pending in the Bombay High Court.

Clifford Chance expects to have an office in India by late 2012 said the firm's senior partner Stuart Popham, vowing to keep pushing the liberalisation agenda in India despite a lack of "overnight" results during his visit as part of the UK prime minister's delegation.

Luthra & Luthra has won this year's Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) – Khushal T-20 cricket tournament against Amarchand Mangaldas in an exciting finish to a close match that was held yesterday night in Delhi after the semi-finals of Saturday.

Titus & Co, Amarchand Mangaldas, Trilegal and Luthra & Luthra have reached the semi-finals of the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) – Khushal T-20 cricket tournament after defeating their rivals in four quarter final matches played over Saturday and Sunday.

Seven Delhi law firms have qualified out of the group stages to the quarter finals of the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) – Khushal T-20 cricket tournament after 23 matches played over four weeks.

Luthra & Luthra, Amarchand, Kochhar and Titus have emerged as likely candidates to qualify for the quarter finals of the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) – Khushal T-20 tournament in Delhi after winning all matches played to date.

Amarchand Mangaldas and K&S Partners steamrollered Desai & Diwanji and Sai Krishna Associates respectively with over 200 runs, in two of last weekend's six matches between 12 teams at the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) – Khushal T-20 cricket tournament in Delhi.

Luthra & Luthra has beaten Trilegal in the first match in the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF)–Khushal T-20 law firm cricket tournament in Delhi, which will pit 16 teams against each other over the next four months.

To me it appears childish to pose the query "until when can entry of foreign lawyers be prevented in India", says Bhasin & Co managing partner and Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) chairman Lalit Bhasin in response to last week's opinion that the Lawyers Collective judgment is wrong.

In the case, the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) is taking the Government to court for putting law firms under the service tax regime.

These are SILF's grounds of the writ and the relief sought.

A: Service tax is a tax on "service" and not on the "service provider". As such, so long as the nature of  "service" remains the same, the form or the business organisation of the service providers/recipient is completely irrelevant, immaterial and extraneous to the object and purpose of the Act.

B: The nature of service, provided and consumed by individuals on the one hand and firms/corporate/ associations on the other is the same, and as such there is no intelligible differential for the purported classification.

C: It appears that the purport of the impugned provision is to levy tax on Law Firms and Corporate Clients whilst excluding individual advocates and individual clients. Thus, the tax sought to be imposed is really a tax on the service provider/recipient and not on service, thus being violative of Article 19(1)(c) of Constitution of India.

D: The basis of classifying legal service providers/recipients into, two groups, viz. individuals and business entities, has no rational nexus/connection sought to be achieved by the Act.

E: The differentiation between "Law Firm" and an "individual" under the Impugned Provisions is arbitrary, unintelligible, unreasonable, discriminatory and has no rational nexus to the object sought to be achieved. Such a classification creates a hostile discrimination between advocates as a class in itself.

F: The levy of service tax on Law Firms is a restriction on the freedom of individual advocates to practice the profession of law by forming an association or partnership duly authorised by law as it imposes unreasonable conditions. The imposition of service tax would be a significant determent to advocates organising themselves into firms.

G: The purported classification of services into services rendered by way of appearance in Court and other services which are provided in aid thereof, is irrational, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

H: The Impugned Provisions of the Act are palpably irrational and arbitrary and deserve to be struck down.

I: The Impugned Provisions seek to levy service tax only on a part of the activities of a law firm in as much as it excludes from the scope of levy, services provided by way of appearances in courts and services of any kind provided to individuals. Under the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004 Rule 6 permits availment of CENVAT credit only on inputs, capital goods and input services, only to the extent they are used for providing taxable output services. It provides for a mechanism by which the extent of credit can be availed by an output service provider.

J: A Law Firm is not a "business entity" and the Impugned Provision so far as it provides for inclusion of a Law Firm within the definition of "business entity" is illegal, arbitrary and bad in law.

PRAYERS SOUGHT:
a)     issue a writ of mandamus declaring Section 65(105)(zzzzm) and Section 66 of the Act, as amended by the Finance (No.2) Act, 2009  in so far they provide for levy of service tax on law firms;

b)     restraining the Respondents from implementing or taking any steps in furtherance of the 65(105)(zzzzm) and Section 66 of the Act;

c)      pending the hearing and final disposal of the petition, restrain and prohibit the Respondents from implementing or taking any coercive steps or actions against the Petitioners.