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11 new Bombay senior counsel include 1 law firm partner from ELP, 3 from outside, 1 woman

Bombay high court: Still a gentlemen's club, but not exclusively for Mumbai & ba
Bombay high court: Still a gentlemen's club, but not exclusively for Mumbai & ba

The Bombay high court has designated 11 new senior counsel, including three outside Mumbai, Economic Laws Practice (ELP) partner Vikram Nankani, and one woman, Anarkali Agni in Goa.

The new senior counsel are, according to the notification on the Bombay high court website, are:

Outside Mumbai

  • Anarkali Agni (Goa)
  • Pratap Rau Sardessai Nitin Narain Naik (Goa)
  • Vinayak Daulatrao Hon (Aurangabad)

Mumbai

  • Sanjay K Singhvi (labour / industrial matters, appearing for unions / workers)
  • VK Ramabhadran (original side shipping lawyer)
  • Vikram S Nankani (ELP civil and commercial disputes, criminal and regulatory partner, including tax and economic offences),
  • Ranjit Anandrao Thorat
  • Prasad Sudhir Dani
  • Atul Gajanan Damle
  • Pankaj A Savant (original side)
  • Mustafa Saleh Doctor (original side)

Senior counsel are not allowed to continue in law firm partnerships and must run an independent counsel practice, which usually means that they resign from the law firm.

ELP managing partner Rohan Shah commented in a statement: “Vikram’s designation is an event of great pride for ELP. Consequent upon this designation, and as part of the regulatory requirement, Vikram will retire as a partner of ELP.  Vikram shall in his capacity as senior counsel continue to work with the relevant ELP services team on all ongoing clients, and matters, that he is concerned with. ELP wishes Vikram the very best in his role as senior counsel.”

Only last month, Vaish Associates partner and head Ajay Vohra was designated as senior counsel, while Bangalore saw the elevation of Poovayya & Co managing partner Sajan Poovayya.

Mumbai law firm Paras Kuhad & Associates founder, Paras Kuhad, was designated to senior counsel in 2011.

For two years running, the Bombay high court had failed to designate any women to the senior counsel ranks, adding to the woeful statistics of only six women designated out of 203 new senior counsel in Mumbai and Delhi in 20 years until 2011.

The Supreme Court in 2013, however, designated four senior counsel, of whom three were women.

Hat-tip to @superselector5.

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