India’s legal luminary Fali S. Nariman launched the limited-edition coffee table book, Lalit Bhasin – A Lifetime Dedicated to Law. This book follows the life of Dr. Lalit Bhasin, India’s prominent legal personality and President of the Society of Indian Law Firms and the Bar Association of India. Covering eight decades, the coffee table book provides a comprehensive understanding of India’s legal society apart from chronicling Dr. Bhasin’s life from his playschool days in pre-partition Rawalpindi, his rise in Delhi’s politico-legal groups, to the present day when he steps forward to celebrate his 58th year as a lawyer.
Releasing the book, noted jurist and living legend of law, Fali S. Nariman, said, “My good friend Lalit Bhasin, who had been the Secretary-General of the Bar Association of India (BAI) ever since the early 1990s and is now its President, has contributed immensely to the growth and success of legal profession. The achievements of the BAI could have never been accomplished without his unstinted support, help, and initiative.”
Commenting on Dr. Bhasin’s achievements, K.K. Venugopal, Attorney General of India, said, “I have never seen a lawyer who has projected India to the legal community in so many countries. He has built bridges across the Asian region single-handedly. We are proud of him.”
Speaking on this special occasion Dr. Bhasin said, “I am grateful to Mr. K. K. Venugopal and Mr. Fali S. Nariman for releasing the book. I am both humbled and elated that my life’s journey has been so beautifully captured in this memoir. The book has taken me back to my childhood days and my journey over 80 years and has captured what I have been able to achieve during this period as a lawyer.”
Enriched with hundreds of personal and professional photographs and replete with numerous interesting anecdotes, experiences and learnings of the distinguished 81-year-old lawyer, it is an anthology of his family history, childhood memories, personal life, professional journey, and unfulfilled dreams.
This book follows a multi-dimensional storytelling approach. While sharing personal events related to Dr Bhasin’s life, the narrative also provides a reflection of several important past and contemporary issues facing society. While this book provides crucial historical information on the growth of the legal profession in India from the late 1960s, it also deals with several poignant moments when he faced tragic incidents and emotional upheavals in his personal life.
During his nearly six-decade long association with the Bar Association of India (BAI), Dr. Bhasin has served as its General Secretary, Vice President and President for almost half the period. He founded the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) in 2000 and has been its President since then. As a strong proponent of mediation and amicable settlement as opposed to prolonged litigation, his role and efforts as Chairman of Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (India) has been lauded by legal luminaries from across the world. His efforts and work in protecting human rights; providing legal-aid to underprivileged, women, children and elderly; strengthening rule of law; raising voice against injustice and divisive forces; unifying the bar under Bar Association of India; and creating bonds with global institutions. Dr Bhasin has been associated with International Bar Association, Union Internationale des Avocats, Inter Pacific Bar Association, LawAsia, American Bar Association, German Bar Association, among others.
This book is not only for those associated with the legal profession, but also for anyone with an interest in leadership, determination, self-discipline, and the strength to overcome hardships of life. It is a reflection of the ancestry, family history, childhood, professional journey, social life, and unfulfilled dreams of Dr. Lalit Bhasin. Hundreds of personal and professional photographs are peppered with motivating stories, knowledges, and learnings.
The coffee table has been published by Roots & Shoots, India’s finest limitededition coffee table book publishers across institutional, professional, corporate, luxury, and lifestyle markets.
Celebrating 60 glorious years of the Bar Association of India, Mr. K. K. Venugopal and Mr. Fali S. Nariman also released, “The Constitution of India Celebrating and Calibrating 70 Years Compendium of Articles”, published by the Bar Association of India and edited by its President, Dr. Lalit Bhasin. These articles have been contributed by most distinguished lawyers, eminent judges, scholars and academicians, distinguished bureaucrats, outstanding politicians, stalwarts from other professions, wellknown media personalities and journalists, political thinkers, and illustrious citizens of this country. This is a compendium of contributions by cross action of top leadership representing various segments of our society. The compendium is a first of its kind endeavour and puts together profound, thought-provoking, and critical analysis of the provisions, working, and implementation of India’s Constitution and is a celebratory gift to India’s intellectuals by the Bar Association of India.
The first copy of the Compendium was also presented to His Excellency the President of India at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.
What would be the contractual obligation between lenders and borrowers, despite the deferment of term loans for a period of three months and the incidental interest payment including how the staggering of capital payment
What are the remedial actions for those who have entered into contracts where force majeure are not invoked or where wording is such that it favors one party to the detriment of other/s.
Jurisdiction of the contract will be another issue to be settled. For instance, both China and India had issued notifications/ advisories, which are couched up in vague terms. There are subtle differences in the nuances for interpretation of the applicability of the Doctrine say in the UK and the US.
In the given situation, it is important for the Supreme Court to revisit the Doctrine and lay down conditions for applicability of the Doctrine especially when the Indian Contract Act is mostly silent on this issue and there will be preponderance of such cases in the future. It is also worthwhile for the legislature to consider amending Indian Contract Act, so that it takes care of disruptions caused in the supply chain in a balanced manner.
Covid-19 triggered a fear among both employees and employers about the continuity of the employment and continued operations of the business enterprises. All segments of businesses, such as manufacturing, services, agribased, etc are being affected by Covid-19. Even if the lockdown is lifted in the conceivable future, the impact will be felt for some time or even years together. Some of the business entities are contemplating closing down their operations while others are scaling down sooner or later. A few enterprises have already announced wage cuts and retrenchment of contract workers including public sector undertakings.
In the given situation, there should be a cushion for both employers and employees to sustain the operations for the former and employment for the latter since mass unemployment would lead to social unrest.
In the short span of time, creation of a safety net by imposing social security tax both from the employer and employee as is the case in many developed countries like the US may not be feasible during these difficult times. To tie down the crisis, the Central and State governments should create a fund, say an Employment Insurance Fund for Rs 1000 crores or so in states where there are large number of employees who are likely to be redundant temporarily (three to six months) and Fund with lesser corpus for states having lesser number of redundant employees. In case, the employer is cutting down the salaries by 50%, the other 50% employees should be able to draw from the insurance fund till the normalcy is maintained. Once the pandemic is over and the enterprises go into full stream, this Fund should be made a permanent one by way of collecting every month, say 6.5% of the salary each from the employer and employees. This will be a permanent fund to help employees during their period of unemployment. This can also be converted into a pension fund for employees after retirement or during unemployment or incapacitated in the event of an accident or sickness. Till a full -fledged revolving Fund is created, Government should deploy a portion of the US$1 billion assistance given by the World Bank since the very purpose of the grant is to meet the exigencies arising from health issues and revamping supply-side.
To implement this humanitarian scheme, the government should amend the labor law to help the corporations to hire people on a contract basis whenever the need arises, and lays them off when the work is completed.
Cases emanating from Covid-19 cases will further increase the pendency of cases in the courts. Alternative dispute settlement mechanisms like arbitration, conciliation and mediation should be resorted to in settling the cases arising out of Covid-19, particularly relating to tenancy, employment, deferment of loans and the interest chargeable thereof etc. There should be finality for the cases decided and higher courts should be approached with an appeal only under exceptional cases. Special courts and benches also can be considered across the country to handle Covid-19 commercial cases and other related ones.
One important positive spin off of the Covid-19 is the growing number of people who work from home, wherever such work model can be adopted. During the lockdown days, most of the employees in the ICT sector and a large number of people from other avocations are working from home. School teachers are conducting online classes. Some state governments have decided to promote that culture not alone during the lockout days but beyond to save on students travel time, early going to schools during inclement weather etc.
Work from home will have a number of benefits including cost saving, decongesting roads, controlling pollution etc, a number of steps should be taken to create an ecosystem. These are mostly relating to protection of intellectual property rights since there can be a possibility of infringement on that since the employees are working from the confines of their homes, adopting newer tools for authentication and change in the employment contracts etc. For instance, in certain sectors other than IT, women are prohibited from working beyond a stipulated time. While working from home, these restrictions are no longer valid. Also, there should be a system in place to monitor the psychological ferment of employees since isolation can have emotional backlash.
Covid-19 also necessitates amendment to a number of existing laws to make them contextual to the changes that are conceived. Indian Contract Act, Indian Evidence Act, IPR, Indian Labor Act, Indian Disaster Management Act, Indian Epidemics Act, etc. are some of the legislations that need review to align with the perceived changes in the economic and legal framework.
Covid-19 has led to many migrant workers leaving cities to their villages. When the lockdown is lifted, there is a possibility of more migrant people leaving cities to their villages and their return would take more time. In the meantime, a lot of productive jobs have to be created near their home to gainfully engage them. Government schemes like NREGA or state employment guarantee schemes, etc. alone will not be able to absorb them. The private sector can chip in. For instance, the corporations can be encouraged to take up development works near the place of their operations. Instead of contributing to the CSR fund set by the government, they should be able to carry out development works involving local people, such as creating village capital assets like roads, sanitation works, irrigation works etc. Some of the agro-based industries are ideally suited to carry out such works more efficiently than the government departments. Expenditure towards such works should be eligible for tax deduction in the same way as the contributions towards CSR, PM Care Fund, PM Relief Fund, etc. This will help extend immediate succor to the affected people and regulate the migration to the overcrowded metros.
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