What prompted you to undertake law?
I joined the legal profession by default. Around the time I graduated, the two professions in demand were (i) MBA; and (ii) Chartered Accountancy. I didn’t make the cut for either and so joined law.
What changes have you noticed personally in the practice of law since the time when you started and now?
Both the practice and the administration of the legal system has changed greatly, since I first joined in the year 1979. In those days, the practice of law was centered around litigation and there were only few solicitors who did not litigate (but specialised in conveyance of property) and that too was largely in Bombay where there was a fair amount of property work. Today, in India (though not as much as it is in the western world), there is a lot of non-litigative corporate work happening and in fact a lot of the larger firms have almost begun to look upon the practice of litigation as something to be avoided.
The foras have also greatly expanded. In the early days if you practiced in Delhi, the foras of practice which were available were the Supreme Court under which there were the State High Courts and below them the District Courts. However, in the last decade and a half, several specialised tribunals have come up and in addition to what was there earlier (namely the Income Tax Tribunal, CEGAT etc), we now have the TDSAT which handles telecom disputes, we also have the consumer protection court, which handles cases pertaining to consumer complaints and the administrative tribunals which handles service disputes.
Tell us a bit about your own firm.
Karanjawala & Company, as it is known today, was started almost over 25 years ago by my wife and I, Manik Karanjawala, in 1983. When we began, a large part of our practice used to come to us from other legal firms situated in Bombay who used us for their Delhi work as they did not have a branch in Delhi. Over the course of time, we have been able to accumulate a fairly large direct clientele, including corporate clients like the Tata Group, Hindustan Lever Ltd, The Bombay Dyeing Group, Colgate Palmolive, Procter & Gamble and many other corporate firms. We also service well known media companies, like STAR TV and Hindustan Times and have also represented well known political figures/celebrities, including the former Prime Minister, Late Shri V.P. Singh and Late Madhav Rao Scindia, who was our former Aviation and Railways Minister and many other well known political personalities. We have also represented several royal families, like the Gwalior family, the Kashmir family and my firm represented the Nizam of Hyderabad in one of the litigations pertaining to his jewellry. The work over the years came at a steady pace, but if I were to look back and try and reflect upon and isolate a few “turning points” then the four turning points that come to mind are (i) the first I think came in 1987 when Late V.P. Singh (who was then our Defence Minister and later became the Prime Minister of our country) became my client. I was his lawyer before the Thakkar-Natrajan Commission and again years later when I represented him before the Jain Commission (which went into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi). I think that particular association gave me and my firm a profile which projected us in a very distinctive manner; (ii) the second turning point I think came in 1990, when both Indian Airlines (the national carrier) and Air India became clients. The firm was able to widely expand its litigation base and to a considerable extent it gave us a “critical mass”, which the firm required in order to take it to a higher level; (iii) The next significant addition came when Rupert Murdoch, in his visit to Delhi after interaction with us, appointed my firm as the legal retainers for STAR TV. STAR has been my client since then and was first among several of the other media clients that the firm is now servicing, including the Hindustan Times, which is again another very well known media group in India. STAR’s functioning in its early years in India had a fair amount of controversy and there was a whole spate of high profile litigation which we had to handle; (iv) The next big leap came in the early 2000s when the Tata Group (India’s largest Corporate Group) started coming to the firm in large measure for their litigation needs. Our client presence had reached a stage when in 2004 the India Today magazine announced its “power list”, it described me as one of the 50 most influential people in the country. The reason it gave in support of the same was that my firm “is the first port of call for several powerful people in legal trouble.”
Do you have any advice for a young litigator, who is about to start his career?
I would make two suggestions (i) The first is that care should be taken to ensure that you join a busy office which has a lot of litigation. Its much better to work in a busy place where you will gain experience rather than just chase a big name. This is important as a large part of your career will be conditioned by where you first joined and a lot of care should be taken to start at the right place; (ii) Second, its important to ensure whilst working on a case that you do not develop an unnecessarily pessimistic attitude to the same. Litigating lawyers are like doctors and a good “bedside manner” does matter. If from the beginning your attitude towards a particular case is negative, even if you win, the client will not be inclined to give you full credit for the same and more often than not your own pessimism will subconsciously prevent you from giving it your best. More than anything, I feel it is essential for a litigator to adopt a “can do” attitude to his work. Nobody likes a downer.
What are your suggestions to corporates in India insofar as the conduct of their litigations is concerned?
I have often noticed that corporates, whilst in the midst of a litigation, are more than happy to spend large sums of money on counsels as well as on solicitor firms by way of fees, but never sufficiently invest in building up their own legal in-house team. Corporates who insist on A Grade counsels and firms often quite foolishly settle for a C Grade legal in-house team. Most litigations are conditioned by the input that the client gives and I feel that it would be well worth their while to invest a fairly large amount of money in building a strong legal in-house team. Its also important to understand that more than the firm you go to, its team that you get to work for you within the firm is what will ultimately matter. The same amount of care should always be taken when picking the team from within those available.
To sum up to what circumstances would you attribute your success?
I have said it before and am again reiterating that I have always believed in one quality that Napoleon looked for in every general: I am lucky.
