About the Speakers
Anurag M. Katarki, is a Barrister, called to the Bar by the Hon’ble Society of Gray’s Inn. Currently, he is an advocate at the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court of India. He practices in a diverse field of litigation ranging from white collar crimes to commercial arbitration and company law disputes. He also does corporate advisory and negotiations for various Startups in India which are inter alia involved in Fintech, FMCG, Agriculture Drones, STEAM Toys and Gaming and Gambling industry(ies).
Mr. Niranjan J Bhatt. Sir is a senior advocate in Ahmedabad, with experience of over 65 years practicing as an Advocate and as a Mediator since 2001, his contribution in the field of mediation is immense. He is also the founder and the Managing Trustee of the Institute for Arbitration Mediation Legal Education and Development (AMLEAD). He was the convener of the first lawyer run Mediation Centre of India in Ahmedabad. Sir has received advance mediation training from Harvard Law School and was a member of Indo-US Central Study Team.
Sir was also appointed as a co-mediator for Assam-Nagaland Inter State Border Dispute by Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. Sir has also participated in International Mediation Conferences at USA, Australia, Germany and Austria. National Mediation conferences at Delhi and Mumbai, Commonwealth conference at Delhi and Pound Conference at Chandigarh.
Sir was appointed as chairman of a 10 member committee for writing exclusive Mediation Legislation appointed by the Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. Sir believes that he is still a student of mediation fast developing across the world.
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Shankar Ganapati Pandit was born on 16th Nov 1965 in Honnavar, attained his early education at Sirsi in Uttara Kannada District, Karnataka. Further he graduated in the stream of commerce in the year 1986 from Bengaluru University.
Justice Shankar Ganapati Pandit studied and obtained his law degree from Sri. JagadguruRenukacharya College of Law, B’luru in the year 1989 and enrolled himself under the Karanataka State Bar Council the following year. He also started his career by practicing in the chambers of Late Sri K. Gopala Hegde (then Retired District & Sessions Judge and a former member of Central Excise and Gold Control Appellate Tribunal) Well-versed practice of law in Civil, particularly in departments such as Service, Education, Labour law, Land Acquisition and many more.
A person very soft spoken and courteous to the court of law while arguing the cases without in any way letting down the interest of clients maintaining the décor of court in a dignified manner. Furthermore he has served as Panel Advocate in many Boards and Corporations and has also represented planning Authorities including Bengaluru Metropolitan Region Development Authority. Currently he has been Appointed as Additional Judge of the High Court of Karnataka and became Permanent Judge on 07.01.2020. A person with such magnitude will truly inspire us. He has always been supremely confident of himself and his judgment. It is our proud privilege to have him as the chief guest.
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Budihal R.B: Born on 01.10.1956. Enrolled as an Advocate on 07.09.1983 and Practiced on Civil and Criminal side at Bagalkot and Bijapur. Appointed as District and Session Judge during May, 1996. Served as an Additional District and Session Judge at Bengaluru and Gulbarga and as Principal District and Session Judge at Gadag, City Civil Court at Bangalore and Belgaum. Also serve as the Registrar (Judicial), Registrar (Vigilance), Secretary to Hon’ble Chief Justice and Registrar General. Appointed as Additional Judge of the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka on 24.10.2013 and Permanent Judge on 04.03.2016. Retired on 30.9.2018.
His Excellency the President of India appointed him as Judicial Member of Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal by Order No. A-11014/8/2018-AT, dated 12.06.2019. On 14.06.2019 his Lordship assumed charge as Judicial Member of Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal.
Mr. B. C. THIRUVENGADAM, (Thiru) is a lawyer of over 4 decades of standing. He has degrees in Commerce and Law from Bangalore University and an Intermediate Degree in Chartered Accountancy. He is a Patent Agent of the Government of India and a Certified U.S. Patent Process Prosecutor, from Sci3 Centre, Sunnyvale, California, and a Certified Mediator by ISDL San Francisco and High Court of Karnataka. He is a Group “A” Counsel of the Government of India, in the Supreme Court. He is the founder partner of Thiru&Thiru, a Legal500 Law firm. Acclaimed as a specialist in the “Corporate Oppression and Mismanagement”, he has expertise in the areas of Commercial Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Energy law and Constitution and Cross border disputes. Mr. Thiru has attended several international arbitrations, as an advocate as well as an arbitrator. He is an international mediator and has resolved several cross-border disputes in the areas of Corporate law, IPR, fashion law and refugees.
He was involved in establishing several court annexed Mediation centers in India - including Bangalore Mediation Centre - the largest in India. He is a Master Trainer and Trainer of Trainers in Mediation and Arbitration and has trained thousands of mediators including lawyers including sitting judges of High Court and Supreme Court, company secretaries and chartered accountants in India and abroad. He is a co-founder Bangalore International Mediation, Arbitration and Conciliation Centre (BIMACC), India’s one and only not-for-profit, comprehensive International Institutional ADR Centre, which is among the top 25 International ADR centers in the world. BIMACC imparts training in various areas of dispute resolution and conflict management and is the resource center for several prestigious law schools in India. As a guest faculty, he teaches Technology Law at the Chicago Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. He has rendered several lectures and technical papers in various universities and institutions in India and abroad. He represents the Society of Indian Law
Firms, (SILF) Bangalore and is the Honorary President of the Corporate and Administrative Law Foundation (CORAL).He is an active member of the International Council of Jurists, London, International Bar Association, London, Inter-Pacific Bar Association, Tokyo, INSOL International, New York and Union of International Advocates Paris. He is featured in the prestigious Lexis Nexis “100 Legal Luminaries of India”. He is also featured as a Leading Lawyer by the Asia law Journal’s, Legal500, Chambers& Partners, Asian Business Law. On 27 th April 2017 David A Clarke School of Law, University of District of Columbia has honored him in recognition of his contribution to the worldwide legal community.
Advocate Susheela Sarathi is a designated Senior Counsel practicing in the High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore. She has done her Masters in Sociology, a Post Graduate Diploma in Industrial Relations and Personal Management and Post Graduate Diploma in Alternate Dispute Resolution from ICADR. She has been practicing for the last 33 years. Susheela is a trained Mediator, and a Master Trainer from Bangalore Mediation Centre. She has trained many lawyers, judges and professionals in mediation. She has authored two books on Mediation in English- Mediation a Reader’s Handbook and Change through Mediation and another in Kannada. She is a renowned columnist in leading Kannada dailies. She has a weekly blog which gives tips to trainers giving training in mediation.
Ajay is an independent arbitrator based out of New Delhi. He is a member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR, and is the immediate past Vice Chairman of the Paris-based ICC Court of Arbitration’s India Arbitration Group. He also serves as a National Correspondent for India to UNCITRAL’s CLOUT system.
He has had the unique privilege of working with three of the world’s leading arbitration institutions; London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), and Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration (SCMA). Ajay has over 18 years of experience as arbitration administrator, arbitrator, advocate, and law teacher. From 2009-2016, he was Director and Founding Registrar with the Indian subsidiary of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), and also a member of the LCIA’s India Board of Directors. Prior to joining the LCIA, Ajay was Counsel with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC). He also served as Assistant Counsel with the Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitration (SCMA). He is on the panel of arbitrators of SCOPE - the apex body of Indian public sector enterprises, and also of Beihai Asia International Arbitration Centre (BAIAC), which is the first international arbitration center in Singapore established by a Chinese arbitration commission.
Ajay graduated from the National University of Singapore (LLM) specializing in arbitration and maritime laws, and the University of Goa (LLB) and (B.Com). On beingadmitted to the bar, he practiced mainly on the original side of the Bombay High Court, as junior counsel at the chambers of senior advocate S Venkiteswaran, who was widely regarded as the guru of shipping law in India. Ajay was also part of the expert committee that assisted the Law Commission of India in the preparation of its Report on ‘Amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996’. Until January 2021, Ajay served year long tenure as the Director and Professor of Arbitration Law at the Faculty of Law at Manav Rachna University. He is also a guest Faculty at various other universities including the Indian Society of International Law and the Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management, where he teaches arbitration. He is regularly invited to speak at conferences, seminars and workshops on arbitration. Ajay is on the International Editorial Board of the Brazilian Journal of Alternative Dispute Resolution (RBADR), and until 2019 was Hong Kong 45’s (HK45) Regional Ambassador for India.
M: +91.9953438490 I T: +91.120.6666805 I E: adv.ajaythomas@gmail.com
Mr. Aswatha Narayana, our Hon’ble speaker is the CHAIRMAN, PERMANENT LOK ADALATH, and FORMER DISTRICT JUDGE who is a native of Native of Kolar. Did B.Sc., at Kolar & Chinthamani. Did LL.B., at VV PURAM COLLEGE, Bengaluru and LL.M., in Business Law at Kuvempu University. Practiced as an Advocate from 1984 to July 1992 at Kolar. Selected as Civil Judge in 1992 and worked at Somawarpete, Arkalagudu and Koratagere. Promoted as Senior Civil Judge and Chief Judicial Magistrate in 2002 and worked at Sagara, Bengaluru, Ramanagara and Karwara. Selected as District and Sessions Judge in 2009 and worked at Bengaluru, Mysore and retired as CBI JUDGE at Bengaluru in September 2017. He has imparted number of training and lectures to Judicial Officers in Karnataka Judicial Acadamy, Judicial Employees in Employees Training Institute and Trained Advocates for Judicial Officers Examination. From October 2017 he is the Chairman of Permanent Lok Adalathwhich resolves disputes relating to Public Utility Services.
Shri. Aswatha Narayana
Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jain
Dr. SUDHIR KUMAR JAIN, who is an officer of Delhi Higher Judicial Service. Presently posted as The District & Sessions Judge, North-East. Delhi. He completed his LLB, LLM and PhD from Delhi University and Were Advocate and a lecturer of law in Campus Law Centre, Delhi University Joined Judicial Service in year 1992 and was promoted to Higher Judicial Service in year 2003. Was member of Academic Council of National Judicial Academy, Bhopal. Regular resource person in National Judicial Academy and other institutions. Wrote various articles on administrative law, mediation and on other legal issues. Posted in different jurisdiction Was Judge in charge of Delhi Mediation Centers Tis Hazari Courts and Rohini Courts Is a trained mediator and trainer for mediators with national recognition Received 40 hrs. training on Concept & Techniques of Mediation in year 2005 from Institute to Study Development in Legal System (ISDLS), California Received Training of Trainers (TOT) from Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), UK Conducted mediation in about 12,000 cases of all categories with experience of more than 12,000 hours experience in conduction of mediation Conducted more than 100 training programmes on mediation and for trainers of mediation for judicial officers, advocates. law students throughout India. Participated as speaker in various regional, national conference on mediation. Accredited mediator by International Mediation Institute, Holland. He is now the Principal District & Sessions Judge cum Special Judge, CBI, Rouse Avenue District Courts, New Delhi.