Exclusive: The Andhra Pradesh writ petition filed by the brother of late South Indian actress Silk Smitha against the movie loosely inspired by her life, The Dirty Picture, has been dismissed in favour of the movie’s producer Balaji Motion Pictures, represented by Naik Naik & Co, and the Censor Board, represented by Verus Advocates recently joined Hyderabad partner.

Exclusive: Khaitan & Co has hired Sharad Abhyankar, the co-founder of ANS Law Associates, as a corporate, commercial and M&A partner in Mumbai with his principal associate.

Khaitan & Co has moved into a larger office in Bangalore, vowing to increase head-counts by nearly 50 per cent there within the next six months.

Exclusive: Clasis Law has hired former Parekh & Co lawyer Sumeet Lall as a partner to head up its litigation and disputes team.

A wrap of the past weeks’ major deals and their advisers, featuring all the usual suspects plus Rajani, LexCounsel, Prism, HSB, SJ Law, Travers, Nabarro, DLA and more…

J Sagar Associates (JSA) has hired Herbert Smith senior associate Promod Nair as a salaried partner in Bangalore, specialising in international arbitration.

Exclusive: Amarchand Mangaldas has promoted five new partners into the lockstep equity pool and created 11 practice heads, as part of the 2017 plan for the firm to grow to 1000-lawyers and 100 partners following the proposals from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) review.

Desai & Diwanji has again reclaimed its throne as the busiest M&A firm in India having acted on 33 deals in the first three quarters of the year with Khaitan & Co also laying down improved M&A figures, while AZB & Partners, Talwar Thakore Associates and S&R Associates harvested the biggest value deals, also benefitting Linklaters and Allen & Overy.

Amarchand Mangaldas has promoted eight principal associates to partnership in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, hired White & Case associate Raghubir Menon as a partner and promoted Irish competition lawyer Paku Khan as a partner-equivalent director.

Exclusive: Naik Naik & Co and securities start-up boutique Prism Partners Advocates have entered into an exclusive alliance under the Naik brand name.

Four senior counsel and Naik in SLP against immovable property rental service tax; AZB Bangalore Muthoot debentures; Universal-Wadia Ghandy Pizza Hut deal; Infrastructure India windfarm buy with 3 foreign firms and KhaiCo, MMB; ANM for Godrej in cyber squatter; Rs 200 crore P&A Kemrock buy; Amarchand Essar delisting.

Corporate recruiter ICICI Bank has increased its basic pay package for new recruiters by almost one and a half lakh rupees taking the basic annual package to 10.5 lakh, as Bharucha & Partners, Juris Corp and Majmudar & Co hiked their fresher pay. Tatva Legal kicked off its first law school recruitment season with packages of Rs 8 lakh.

Yesterday’s closed-door afternoon meeting between UK justice secretary Kenneth Clarke, Indian law minister Salman Kursheed and Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Ashok Parija stopped short of reaching an agreement on the entry of foreign law firms but the countries would trial cooperation on the legal education front for the next six months.

Former India Law Services (ILS) associate and Symbiosis Law School graduate Aakash Phadnis project finance and intellectual property (IP) start-up in Pune has recently started a tie-up in Delhi and hopes to open in Mumbai soon.

Amarchand goes down under for $1.3bn GVK coal mine buy with Minters, Cliffords; Ex-AZBer’s Vishnu gets busy with Credit Suisse; Vaish hits the capital markets; JSA, KhaiCo, Amarchand disinvest in NYSE-Co; Amarchand restructures Alstom; and Naik gets a John Doe order.

Amarchand on Fortis mammoth internal restructuring, and Alfa Laval delisting; Desai & Diwanji and Seth Dua on two related private equity injections; Khaitan & Co gets close to Raiffeisen; JSA helps Naukri owner expand online reach to Zomato and beyond; MDP gets Cox & Kings out of Maharaja Express pickle for now; JSA and MD&T Partners get Indians to make hoses with Spaniards.

Exclusive: Alternative energy resources company Gadhia Solar Energy Systems has started its in house legal department by hiring intellectual property (IP) attorney Vinay Dwarkadas as its first general counsel.

Delhi-headquartered law firm Khaitan Jayakar Sud and Vohra (KJSV) has rebranded itself to KS Partners as it relaunched its Mumbai office to focus on niche practice areas, while its former Mumbai partner Mohan Jayakar left to start his own firm.

AZB & Partners Delhi and P&A Associates advised on the sale of AppLabs to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) for as much as Rs 1,200 crore ($253m).

Exclusive: DSK Legal’s Delhi office has scored the role advising Japanese telecoms major Softbank Corp on its $200m strategic investment in Bangalore-based mobile ad network InMobi, alongside four international firms.