“I received a call from the government today,“ Kaviraj Singh, secretary general of the Indian National Bar Association (INBA), told us yesterday. Staunchly pro-liberalisation INBA and Singh have been one of the stakeholders involved in discussions with the Indian government.

On Saturday, 11 November, the Indian National Bar Association (INBA) had held the “Bar Leadership Summit on Reforms in the Indian Legal Sector” conference to discuss the future and liberalisation of the legal profession, and to bring together leaders of the bar and the government.

At a smaller meeting called by the commerce ministry on 1 September with legal industry stakeholders, including Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf), the Indian National Bar Association (INBA) and Bar Association of India (BAOI), the three Silf members present reiterated their position that foreign law firms, if they were to enter India, shouldn’t be allowed to hire Indian lawyers.

The commerce and law ministries are unequivocally in favour of opening up the legal sector to foreign lawyers as soon as possible, reveal the full minutes of the July meeting between ministries and lawyers, though the details of how this will be done remain uncertain.

The Indian National Bar Association (INBA), which released a report last week calling for the entry of foreign law firms this year, has now also been invited to also meet the Government in tomorrow’s talks on legal market liberalisation.

The Indian National Bar Association (INBA) has weighed into the legal market liberalisation debate, coming up with a proposal that would see foreign law firms entering by the end of this year, with “complete liberalisation” proposed to happen by the end of 2019.

Commerce ministry joint secretary Sudhanshu Pandey told a US-Indian delegation today that the government would seek to pass an amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act this session that would allow foreign lawyers to come to India to act for their clients in arbitrations in order to boost domestic arbitrations.

Legally India investigates in Mint how special interests have succeeded at and could end up indefinitely stalling reform of legal services, despite the government’s best laid intentions.