This interview has been published by Anshi Mudgal and The SuperLawyer Team
I’ll start with the very, very important, and first and pertinent question, how and when did you decide to become a Barrister and an Advocate? And how was your journey? When did it start and how is it going? What kind of challenges have you faced still now?
Thank you for the question. Coming from Delhi, obviously it being the litigation hub, my school was right near the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.
So it was always on the way to school. I would see the courts, the lawyers. It was very intriguing to me. And then, a funny anecdote, when I was in 11th or 12th, I remember I had taken commerce with maths and I was so traumatized with maths. Then the next question came, where can I make money where math won’t be required and I don’t have to use trigonometry.
So there were few options which came out of which, again, law came, so I thought, might as well. Maybe that’s destiny. So that was the main reason why I started with law. It was a very stupid excuse, I must say, but everything’s written. I went to the UK. I was in University of Warwick where I did my undergrad, LLB. Unlike India, there what you do is you learn the substantive law in your undergrad. That is your LLB. That’s for three years. And then you either become a barrister or a solicitor, wherever you learn the procedural aspects. So solicitors are the ones who work in law firms. They are the ones who interact with the clients who make your witness statements or draft your petition. Barristers are a bit of a different side of the disputes.
Barristers are the ones who have the right of audience. That means they’re the ones who argue in court. So the training to be a barrister is quite different. It’s more about reading skills. It’s more of technicality and more into law. I mean, I’m sure both require their own sets of skills. Being a solicitor on the original side and being able to deduce that evidence from the client is a separate art, which barristers don’t have to do because then the paperwork already comes to them and you have to apply your brain just towards the right affording suspect.
So I was trained to be a barrister there, which opened my insights a lot. The way of education that we got there was quite different. Coming from a CBSE background where in our board exams, we were required to write probably a 300 word essay and suddenly entering into this university where within the first week I’m given an assignment to write a 3000 word essay.
It was challenging for all of us. I still remember, okay, so I wrote that essay and then they were like, but this is already there in the book. Like, what do you want? Law is already there and I’m giving you the law. And that’s where they taught me what analytical thinking was. And I think it was very important. Honestly, coming from the CBSE background, I did find it a bit disadvantageous, initially.
Took me a year to grasp and understand how this functions, how the essay writing functions, how do you write 5,000 words when you can do the same for 500 words. That’s also an art. Yeah, it was a very different form of education system. Some things I would say they should learn from India and some things I would really suggest India should learn from them.
Like when I was trying to be a barrister, we used to have recorded sessions of cross-examination or examination in chief or client handling. The biggest thing is client handling. What questions do you need to ask your clients while also protecting yourself under the ethical rules?
Like a simple thing if you’re doing mainly criminal trials. You won’t ask him a question, did you do it? Because the moment you say that and he answers that question to you, you can’t now take a not guilty plea. So ethical standards also come around, I’m sure. So these are things I’m not saying people have mal intention or anything, but these are things that need to be taught.
Problem is, I don’t see in Indian law schools that are being taught, I was fortunate enough to have been taught that. And whenever I have interns, I always tell them that when you’re talking to a client, be very careful because it is a double edged sword. Anything and everything that they reveal to you, though it is bound by attorney client privilege, but you also have the advocates Act and you need to be careful in navigating your way through both of them, by using it harmoniously.
So these are a few things that I learned there, how it was different. Then obviously after doing law, I was really motivated to come back to India because I love my country. I love the way things function. It may be chaotic, but I love the chaos. So I decided to take that leap of faith and coming back to India. I remember I was with Mr.Ciccu sir, in Delhi for a couple of years, one and a half years or so, where, I mean, I was exposed to the world of arbitrations, which was a very new ballgame. And, considering I was a barrister, so I had the license to practice in arbitration, so until I get my formal license in India to practice, so that way it was better for me to do that.
A very good experience in international arbitrations. And then I moved to Bombay, took another leap of faith, left my hometown Delhi, and then moved to a completely different city, the financial capital of India. It was an eyeopener. It taught me a lot. AZB was amazing that way. The work was high pressure, I won’t lie, but what you learn in a short span of time is invaluable because you have such volumes of cases and the type of cases.
There are humongous disputes for hundreds and thousands of crores. How a big firm functions, how 20 lawyers put their brain in one case. And, yeah, I mean, it was a very good learning process and that way Bombay has been kind and cruel at the same time. It always uses the carrot and stick story.
If you screw around, you’ll get beaten. If you’re nice, you get that carrot. So yeah, it’s been a good journey so far.
Keeping that in mind, in the early stages of your career, you gained invaluable experiences with Senior Advocate, Ciccu Mukhopadhaya, the kind of challenges you may have faced because you were transitioning from UK to India and the way it works over here, how did these kind of experiences contribute to your understanding of the kind of arbitrations that we do on national, or rather domestic level and international arbitration; so how do you see your transition along with the transition of arbitration itself?
I mean, true, like you said, arbitration has scaled great heights in India.
When I moved from the UK, I remember doing some internships in mini pupilages in the UK especially. The most notable one was Blackstone Chambers that I was there, I was fortunate enough to assist the seniors that time. The Queen’s Council now King’s councils in the Gina Miller case, though, not an arbitration, but it was Gina Miller is the famous Brexit case.
So there I saw barristers sitting one entire month on one case. So as a new law student, that is something very new, how well prepared you all are, and even the competition is as well prepared. India has a very different work game. I’m not comparing the two of anything about competency or quality.
Both require a different set of skills. They are shocked when they see Indian senior counselors appearing in five cases in a day. They’re like how is this possible? Here one barrister is sitting for an entire month for one case. How is this person doing five appearances in one day. It’s shocking to know. It requires a different set of skills to do. When I started litigation, the moment I came back to India, that switch was quite different.
It was shocking. It was amazing how in chaos they are still functioning properly. That was an eye opener how this is happening. Now, specific context of arbitrations. During that time, international arbitrations were growing. Now I foresee a dip in the arbitrations because of a lot of things.
A, how the government is also taking a not so pro arbitration stand now, with more than INR 10 crores of government contracts removing the arbitration clause. Stamp duties being imposed on awards. Very high stamp duties, especially like now, the recent Maharashtra Stamp Act, so it will hinder arbitration going forward. Considering also the list of non arbitrability of disputes being expanded.
It has come to a point. It feels like sometimes nothing is applicable. But yeah, talking about that golden period when I was here with Ciccu sir, very amazing. It was like dust. So anywhere you hit a case law is gonna get settled about different parts of things, be it seat versus venue obligations, be it pre-enforcement deposits.
And then set aside the definition of patent illegality being expanded and then again being narrowed down, the stamping of arbitration issue. These all are really enthralling issues which have been taken the course of arbitration in India. Specifically with Ciccu sir, I was fortunate to assist him in international arbitrations.
The most fond memory I have was when I went to Paris with him for a CIAC arbitration. So the biggest question everyone asked was, oh, why Paris if it’s CIAC? So the seat and venue argument again comes out there that Paris was the venue, that Singapore is the seat, substantive law is theIndian contract Act.
So three 3 types of law, procedural, substantive, and the seat (jurisdictional). So it was enthralling to witness how SIAC functions at an international level. We had all the top arbitrators in the world in that, the biggest names that you can understand, how professionally it was being conducted, how every line was being transcribed, was very important to see.
And the best part was in the night, our job was to inspect if everything’s written is right or not, because by chance there’s an issue. Then how witnesses were cross examined, how the Chinese walls were always maintained regardless of how they are based, that there is no intimidation or anything going on.
It was a very good experience and you learn different facets of law. When you go for enforcement or set aside how Singapore views it and how India views it. India, I would still say has a bit more broader scope than Singapore, but maybe it’s needed because it’s different geographical, geopolitical, demographic issues that we have here.
Considering now that argument, which is going on in the Supreme Court regarding, section 34, that is a set aside application should they be allowed to modify the award. Now that is something which is, I don’t know what the Supreme Court’s going to say because I have views on both sides.
If you allow them to modify it, then very well, because otherwise what happens, the moment you set aside, you go back to clock zero and you stop. But the moment you get the power, the modify, then what’s the point, there is a normal court proceeding where you’re giving appellate powers. So it’s a very difficult thing. The scope in India, and at least in the last 10 years since the amendment has come, the act after 96 close to 18 years, that amendment came 18, 19 years. Since then, a lot of things have changed. Arbitration was booming. Maybe with these recent amendments or the government stand and the highest stamp duty, it may take a hit. But if you want to have India as a very high on the charts on the ease of doing business, we have to be pro arbitration.
So that is my takeaway from the last 7 to 8 years of practice in arbitration.
How did you decide to start your own law firm, your own chambers, and what was the motivation behind it? And the kind of challenges? I’m pretty sure you must have faced. We request you to share some of those with the kind of solutions that you came up with because you started this at such an early age. It’ll be very beneficial for our learners to understand how they can also brush themselves to go through this particular path.
Sure. I mean, I was fortunate enough to become a barrister at the age of 21, 22. So I was quite young when I already had all the accolades. I had an undergrad and I had a barrister degree. I was just 22. So I moved to India at that time. I was one of the youngest in the course also there, everyone else is 26, 27 or 29.
I was the only kid there. So it helped me mature up faster because the people around me are all 5, 7 years elder to me. I was in AZB. Like I said, the matters were so big that 20 lawyers are working on it. But then somehow I just felt that I’m not getting to do the work that I wanted. Because of such magnanimity, you’re not able to do the entire work.
Though everyone is given a specific job, otherwise it’s not going to get done. Only the partner knows the entire case holistically. Otherwise, you all are doing your separate job as needed. So I realized that, let me just understand this. And, I really have the hunger to learn and do cases from start to finish.
I’ll make the index and make the list of dates and draft the petition. I want to argue also. Everything I wanted to do. I want to do it. So I had that little kid in me who never thought things through that time, I was young, so maybe, one day I just decided that no, I don’t want to be a small part of a big project.
I’d rather do the entire project by myself regardless of how small it is. The kid in me never sought advice from anyone also, it was just a pure instinct move and I left. And life taught me a lot of things that way. One case led to another. One thing I learned, you need to be fearless. Fearlessness and stupidity have a very thin line, so you got to be careful there as well.
You got to take your steps slowly, but calculative, but also not be scared. Because the moment you venture out in independent practice, there are a lot of things that you need to be careful of. It’s not just your ego that you want to do it alone. It’s the client’s case at risk. Sometimes it is their freedom if you’re doing bails, sometimes it is their hard earned money if you’re doing a civil case, sometimes it is their house if you’re doing a redevelopment agreement and the issues that come around there, it is their house. If you do it wrong now he’s going to be homeless. So there’s a lot of pressure also, high stake pressure there. You should never be afraid of asking help from anyone. Never think that if you’re asking from help, maybe you’re getting demeaned.
Your job is to ask for help. I remember catching anyone in the Bombay Bar and going and meeting and started talking to them. I still remember 4 years ago, my first office was the High Court library. Because, I couldn’t afford to buy so many books. All these books are very expensive.
Bombay real estate is very expensive. Anywhere you go to rent an office, it’s really expensive. And I was that time around 25, 26, and I didn’t feel right to take money from my father. I’m an independent guy and I had my savings a little bit from a AZB, I thought, let me venture this out. So I’ve seen it from the ground up.
From my days of having my first office in the High Court library with the rotating chairs, whoever sat in your chair, has sat now. So no fixed office that way. So I would think positively, I’d say I have many offices and I have a huge collection of books, which is for free. So that’s where it started.
One thing led to another. You got to be courageous. You got to learn throughout your life. Like you said, I’m very young and I would consider myself to be a student of law forever because law is something where you learn something new every day. Today I may know the law and the other person might come up with a new argument, which is intriguing.
Then I’ll learn something. And the same thing even I have done. Sometimes I might think this is a very foolish argument, but I have won the case on that. I don’t know how judge saw sense in it. Maybe I wasn’t seeing it. So it was a very enthralling experience. Because I didn’t have foresight of which type of case is going to come to me, any client who would repose faith in me and took over that case.
So maybe that way I became fortunate enough to have a very expansive field of practice. I remember doing IBC, oppression mismanagement. I remember having a client who came to me for Armed Forces Tribunal. I have nothing to do with Armed Forces Tribunal, like I’ve been only a commercial litigation lawyer.
It was a very enthralling experience. Then I remember a friend came to me for his share subscription agreement, and lucky for him, he got selected by the Y Combinator and now he has raised a hundred million. So through his journey, like when he was in the nascent stage I did that share subscription, but every round he came back to me because then I understood the startup game, how it is going, what are the common pitfalls businesses face?
What are the challenges founders face? What are the challenges investors face? What are the regulatory requirements that they always overlook? What are the employment law requirements that they generally overlook? And I’m a very big fan of tech, so I keep a note of all of it. So it’s a very good database for me also to sit and analyze across industries so that way the other startups also started.
So they started with the STEM toys and gaming, gambling, then drone tech, health tech. And as lawyers, one thing I’ve always suggested is not just about the law. It is you need to understand the industry better than your client, because then only he’s going to respect you. Only when you know his industry better than him is when he’ll understand, okay, you understand my problem genuinely.
It’s not just the law that you’re telling me. This even online I can see. So it’s very important for you to understand the industry that they’re in. What is the issue in that industry? Because how you say, what is a startup? It’s a innovative or an inventive way of finding solution to a problem. Now, first you should see why haven’t other people done it?
Is it so difficult? Are you Einstein? How did you come up with this? There should be some issue why they’re not doing it. Is there a legal issue? Does the law not allow It? Are the taxes too high? Are the cess too high in that industry? Maybe there’s a high GST. Maybe that’s why it’s not working. Maybe something like Bitcoin where the government is only not clear whether it’s legal or illegal, but yet put 28% tax on it.
So the model is only not viable. So all these things you need to advise clients, even though you’re not expected to know this, but you will only be able to serve your client to the best of interest when you know all these things. So that’s what I’ve learned in my humble experience till now.
It has been a good journey. I hope it gets better.
We would request you to share your experience about how you get called to the Bar by The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, the kind of things that one has to do in his or her legal career for that particular qualification of getting as a barrister, it’ll also help the learners, and I would request you also, in case you have some insight about the SQE qualifications, which usually Indian lawyers can qualify and register themselves over there and practice in UK because you already have seen that particular world, there is a possibility that we’ll get to know more about it, obviously from the firsthand experience?
Sure. I mean, I can’t comment much on SQE, but SQE is always, that’s a solicitor route. I think they have changed the name also now. They keep on changing names. Can’t help it. Even for a barrister, during my time it was BPTC.
Now it is BVC, BFC. I don’t know. They keep on changing God knows for what reason, but yeah solicitor is obviously the easiest way for Indians. If you’re going to migrate to the UK. You won’t get right of audience. solicitors don’t have right of audience. You can practice in the lowest court that is a magistrate court or the crown court.
But not above that, above that you need to take another exam or something through which you may get a right of audience. But having said that, for Indians, generally people who are going there, if you think a law firm is the safest bet for you, of course, you would rather do the SQE than do the barrister because obviously you have jobs in law firms which are better paying and more secure.
You might have to work a lot. But obviously it’s way more secure and you have a fixed pay. Coming to the barrister side. First, I’ll just give you a highlight of the process, at least during my time how it was. For us, if we had to do an undergrad in the UK, LLB and then do this, or there’s one more thing called GDL, that is a one year, super law course, as I call it. So we do all the subjects in one year, all the major subjects are trust, law, contract law, Tort law, and criminal. These are the major ones, which everyone has to do. There may be some electives you’ll have to take, but all within one year, so very daunting. For Indian lawyers maybe you can write to the Bar Standards Board, that is the BSB, there to seek an exemption, saying that you have studied, that India is also a common law jurisdiction. How contract law is an act given by them. Mostly the principles. The principles are the same everywhere, in any common law jurisdiction. So if we can make an argument and show that you have some years of practice and seek an exemption from doing the GDL or anything, then comes the course or the BPTC course, maybe whatever the new acronym that they have put in now, I don’t know. So in that, what happens is that, A is that you get into that course. Second is you become a member of one of the four inns of court. So that’s Gray’s Inn, Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Lincoln’s Inn. So from Lincoln’s Inn, you have our Jawaharlal Nehru, from Middle Temple you have Sardar Patelji, from Gray’s Inn we have Mr.Ambedkar. That’s why personally, I had chose Gray’s Inn because of that, since it was the smallest and the youngest. Lincoln’s Inn is the oldest and the biggest. There comes your Inner temple where you had Gandhiji. So, I mean, you become a member of these four inns of court. Some people have their interview process also.
It’s a process that you need to apply, get recommendations. Interviews are being conducted and then you are admitted as a member of the inns of court. So now to get the big call to a bar, you need to do 12 qualifying sessions in the inns of court, which can range from dinners to moots to lectures to trial to mock trials, anything. These all happen in their ancient old halls, which are like all 500 years old or 600 years old. Halls like if you have seen Harry Potter, how they dine. So that dining shoot has happened in Lincoln’s Inn. So that’s how we all barristers used to dine. We all used to go on our big gowns.
And then there’s your master’s table where there’s the king’s councilors and the queen’s councilors and the guests for that time dinner or lecturers come and then we all would sit in sets of two students and two practicing barristers. So that way we could also communicate. We would get to know people in the fraternity.
We get to know their experience. They might also impart some wisdom to us. It was nice. Then comes the hardest part, which are the exams. So your course starts sometime in September and till May, so roughly 6 months, 6 to 8 months. During this period from Jan onwards, your exams will start.
So every month expect to have 3 exams. The exams would be like arbitration. And here all the procedural law comes. Like, remember when I told you the substantive as an undergrad, procedure is there, so your CRPC, CPC, arbitration. Then comes your opinion writing, drafting, cross-examination, examination in chief, presenting an application.
Then comes ethics. So these all courses are there, and you have to get a minimum 60% in each to pass. No one gets above 80, so you need to fall in that middle bracket of 60 to 80. They fail you by one mark also. And the first thing that you hear when you enter the barrister courses, look to your left, look to your right 30% will run away by next month. That is a normal thing. But yeah, it’s fruitful. The experience is fruitful and when you come out you also see the change in you, how your skills have been sharpened, how pinpointed questions you ask and how you present yourself in court. Before the course and after the course are a very different experience.
And I can say this because I know lawyers who were lawyers in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and they have come here and done this course, they’ve been practicing for 10 years. They themselves shared that their skills are now sharpened.
You’ve had exposure to global jurisdictions through your legal journey — what major changes did you notice in yourself through this process, and what motivated your return to India? How did you navigate the transition back, and did your familiarity with Delhi help? Additionally, how did you develop the skill of reading clients and understanding the psychology behind cases and businesses?
So, like I said, these are courses that have to be taught in India. So we were taught this day in and day out, so every week we used to have a recorded lecture, like I’m sitting with a professional actor and doing cross-examination or interview of the client, conducting an interview of when he or she has come and told me like I have to prep them for the cross-examination tomorrow.
So I’m like, okay, come, let’s sit. I’ll ask you a few questions you have to answer. You need to understand what question not to ask. And you’re trained in? These things are very important. People in India always say we will learn through practice. Even if I was in India, I would also like to learn through practice, I can read about it.
But I didn’t know there were books like these. There are very nice books written out there regarding opinion writing or client management or conducting cross-examination, even for pleadings. I remember the first book I bought was How to Plead Without Tears. I’m forgetting the author, but that was the title of the book, the first book I borrowed from the library.
So these are things, like I said, when I was in India, I didn’t know of this. Once I went there and when a professional actor, and usually the teachers are the ones who are practicing barristers, so these are part-time teachers, technically they’re only coming for that one course. And then going back to their practicing scene.
So they would give their personal anecdotes, give you more wisdom, and that is very important in shaping my ideology also. Second thing is how in India people take a lot of their friends, family cases. Though it is not illegal, the Advocates Act only doesn’t allow you to appear for blood relatives.
But generally what they taught me and why I clearly agree was especially in litigation, if not corporate, is you should be fully independent. The moment you have a client in litigation with whom you have a personal relation or anything, it’s not that it is illegal or anything, I would say that your judgment is clogged because then you start taking it personally.
And also you are not being true to the ethical values because if you see your duty towards the court is paramount, it’s above your duty towards the client. That’s what the advocates act also says. When you have somewhat vested interest. I’m not saying monetary only because he’s your friend, maybe you’re a bit more emotional about that case.
Maybe it’s your relative, you’re a bit more emotional. It clouds your judgment. You’re not able to understand the counter-arguments, and that’s when the other lawyer who is totally independent will get the better of you. Because more often than not in court, you can write 10,000 pages of pleadings.
The judge is only gonna listen to you, to the council. So 90% is a council, 10% obviously, you can’t plead facts, which you haven’t submitted in your pleadings, but as to law especially. Unless you are independent, your judgment will be clogged. And that’s my personal experience . And that’s the main thing that I was taught there.
And I completely agree with that.
Over the course of your career, you have appeared in various cases at the Supreme Court of India as well, which are of significant matter. If you don’t mind sharing some of the highlights of a few intriguing cases, also, the kind of complexities and how you navigate through that whole process.
Because as you were trained to do that particular research at length, how have you made sure that you do it in a limited period of time that is given to you, and how have you navigated the whole process?
Actually more than that, I would add one more. Not just a limited period of time, but also the limited period of speaking time that you get in the court.
The Supreme court is a very different practice than any other court, unless you are a very known face of how like the big stalwarts are, the court wants to listen to them. Everyone in the audience also wants to listen to them. When Mr. Sibal talks, Mr. Singhvi talks, all these all these are like songs when they’re talking, we are like please keep going, even if it is for hours because we get to learn so much from them.
When someone like me steps in, who still has only one or two gray hair, they don’t listen to you. They’ll give you probably 2 minutes, 5 minutes if they are generous, or maybe it’s very contentious. The longest I’ve gone is half an hour, and as we know, 9 out of 10 cases are thrown on the pre notice change. In the Supreme Court there’s a very old saying, if you have notice issued then 80% of the case is won. Then you get to know if your true counsel, if you’re able to get the case dismissed after the notice is issued, because getting the notice issue is a very high threshold. Something like the Supreme Court, I mean cases which are very close to my heart is one I remember I argued, Lieutenant’s matter.
I was fortunate enough to appear before the Additional Solicitor General of India. We had a lot of heated arguments. It was a matter of Article 21 right to life. My client was paralyzed and he was being invalidated from service and also asked to leave the hospital. Where will a paralyzed man go?
That was the biggest thing. Where do we let the paralyzed man go? We can’t just leave him on the streets. So that was a very interesting argument. He brought in Article 21. We used a little bit of our own brain process, like they were throwing him out of the hospital. And I started asking for a release, which relates to US surgery.
I took them to the US and the judge, I remember Deepanker Dutta was there and he’s like, you want surgery in the US? Where do you think you are? This is in India, like this, do you think we send everyone to the US? So then I was like, okay sir, please give it to me in AIMS only then. He’s like he is already in a government hospital now, I was like but they’re removing him, and he’s like no, no, he can be there. That’s what I ultimately wanted.
So it was good. So that was one case that I’m really proud of. That was my first pro bono case. I thought at least I did whatever I could for the client, unfortunately he is no more. Then another, I remember my first case was against Mr. M.R.Shah, it was small, I mean, I won’t consider it small that way. It was a very small point of law where the workers were supposed to be given compensation.
Poor workers were being tortured and tormented. Somewhere in 2002 during construction, they fell. One person severed their hand, 20 people fell like that, and the contractor and the agency weren’t giving them their insurance amount. I remember I appeared before Mr.M.R.Shah And no one appeared for the respondents.
He asked me pinpointed questions. And before me, mine was serial number 11, I remember, the first 10 were dismissed. First 10 were dismissed, or no one got notice issued. I was there and the respondents didn’t appear. He grilled me for 10 minutes and I was like, why is this guy doing this to me?
These are poor people. And I was still young. I was just 26, 27 years old. These are poor people, they deserve their thing, unnecessarily this appeal has been filed too after a delay, and the High Court for reasons best known to them allowed the appeal. So after I filed this, he grilled, grilled, grilled.
Then suddenly I saw an order where he has given me, he has issued notice, and he has written some good things about me like counsel vehemently argued. So these small pleasures of life that you enjoy. You like why you are doing this job. Law is something which is…, I mean, sure monetary aspect is there, but you can’t join this profession, especially litigation if you are just looking at the monetary aspect because more often than not, you will have many clients who cannot afford, but you really wanna help them because ultimately they have no other way to get justice.
So council practice is very different, and if you’re only looking at the monetary aspect, I would suggest don’t get to council practice that easily unless you have a lot of monetary support.
I’m pretty sure you must have gone through a lot of these kinds of exciting cases where you not only learn, but others also have learned from you. Can you share your experience about advising the investors and acting as an external legal counsel, especially for drone tech manufacturers, and you are also involved in the agricultural sector, the drone use in the agricultural sector.
How have you approached that? What kind of due diligence is conducted? The kind of agreements that are made, or how do you actually address the issues or challenges in these legal fees, which are actually emerging industries. How have you gotten into this and how do you see that technology is going to be a change factor for legal practice itself?
See, tech is coming and everywhere, everything nowadays tech is being added. Legal tech is there. Drone tech is there. The other day I met someone who was into spiritual tech. I don’t know what that means. I dunno what that means but I’m intrigued to know, like you specifically asked about drone tech.
And actually recently I met another client, which is into anti drone tech. He is like everyone’s making a drone, I’ll make an anti drone. So it’s very interesting what’s going on. Specifically if you talk about agritech in combination with drone tech, a lot of things come in, A, obviously licensing. You can’t just fly a drone.
You need your DGCA license. You need licensed pilots, you need trained pilots. You need a proper training school. You need to make sure that the data that you are collecting, you have taken consent. Consent is most important. And, the DPDP act, though it has come, the rules haven’t come, so you’re not able to enforce it.
Some people have already found loopholes. Some people are like, okay, tech as if it is online, I’m gonna write a ticket for it, and then process the data. So unless case laws come, we can’t navigate through all this. A lot of SPDI rules, information tech. Now drones are also flying. Now a lot of times happened like, had an instance scenario where the drone fell and it burned the entire crop.
Who is liable? Insurance company saying we are not liable to pay because we covered the drone catching on fire and falling while we are not responsible for this crop. And fortunately, unfortunately, everything was dry grass. What do you do? The villagers have tied the pilot who had come to fly the drone.
They’re not leaving him, giving the money back. So these are complex issues which come around. You have to navigate, you have to get proper insurance and such things. You need to make sure that the testing for the drone is right. The pilot who’s been given the drone is safe, secure, properly licensed.
The data that you’re using, you have full consent to, not only to collect, but also to monetize it. Otherwise, tomorrow you might have a claim from the landowner who will say, I’m also part owner of this data. Such complications are always going to come. You need to make sure that there’s a proper title towards those drones as well.
A lot of people imagine that the drone falls where it is, the drone is 10 kilometers away from you. A lot of people take the parts and run away. That also happens. Someone say, this is mine. So security also has to be taken care of. It’s a very niche industry that you need to take care of. I need to also, every time, sit with the founders and see what their vision is.
Is your job just to spray pesticides through a drone? Covering 20 kilometers? Fair. Is your job also to put an infrared camera and see what is the output of this? Where all is the pesticide spraying, where it is spraying, where the output coming is less or more. All these are important issues which need to ask the founders as to how they are gonna navigate.
Do they plan on having this and monetizing this, or they just want to set up a company? So all these questions need to ask in accordingly, different, different acts coming. So it has to do a lot with what the founder’s vision is. If you have very low business capacity and very low investment, maybe just a simple drone with the pesticide you will need to just spray it.
You wanna go through a high tech process, output data, input data, get every small thing about the crop. Is this crop good, viable? What vegetable should grow there? This all requires a lot of SPDI rules. DPDP rules, information tech rules. A lot of things happen.
Given your diverse national and international experience, what advice would you offer to legal aspirants entering tech-related fields, especially in terms of necessary qualities, strategic preparation, and managing mental health alongside the demands of a legal career?
See, obviously, law, especially litigation as a profession, I would suggest only do it if you have the passion for it. And especially when you are independent, like how I am. Work-life balance has no meaning only. If you don’t have work, you’ll be sitting in anxiety.
If you have work, you’ll be very grateful to God and you’ll work till 4 am also. So for me, I just can’t relate to it. Maybe when I was working in a law firm, yeah. I would say, oh, why am I getting called at 2:00 AM in the night? I don’t wanna work, I wanna sleep. Now I get a call at 2:00 AM the night. Yes, of course I’ll be there.
So it’s very different perspectives. The day I left and I saw I’m loving what I’m doing, I work any hour because I get that excitement. Until you’re getting that excitement, everything seems like a chore then I mean, you won’t wanna do it as and when you like. So only enter this profession if you have that passion. Second, you have to keep your diet very well, because the problem with this is we are in a desk job.
This is all a desk job, so use bound to gain weight, especially the way things are out here now. Eating outside, unhealthy, unfiltered, questionable oil food. It’s going to take a toll on your mental health because the only way your physical health is fine is when this is going to be fine. And considering with so much involvement of technology and everything, mental health does take a huge shift.
So always suggest everyone to keep everything disciplined. Learn to work out for at least half an hour a day. Eat healthy, eat home food. Best part, nothing will happen. If you eat home, you eat puri at home, it’s fine as long as it’s home food. The outside oil you don’t know what’s in there, They’re cooking in the same oil for 10 days.
Second, obviously the passion has to be there and everything ultimately flows from the Constitution. I have it right here. This is the father of everything, every time you have a doubt. What is this law? I’m not understand. Read from where it has come. It has to come from the Constitution, only the Constitution gives that authority, the power to make that law. So the day you understand Constitutions. All your issues regarding complexity of laws will go and any new law which also comes, you will know how to understand it if you understand the Constitution. So every law student, I always suggest that constitutional law is not just for someone who practices in the red jurisdictions or only the Supreme Court.
It is for everyone because you could be doing corporate anything, but to interpret that statute, you need to understand the Constitution, and this is the golden rule for everything.
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