Several months ago a born-and-bred Mumbaikar advocate returned all of his Bombay high court briefs and literally drove his BMW across the country in two days to make Delhi and the Supreme Court his new home, in return for the hope of “things [he] didn’t get to do in Bombay”.

The GLC Bombay 1988 and King’s College London 1989 alum, Rahul Chitnis, wrapped up his 20-year-old Bombay high court counsel practice this July to start from scratch in the capital.

“The Supreme Court is not going to move anywhere,” he tells Legally India about his move, which he says very few other Bombay lawyers make. “Everybody ends up here [in Delhi]. If you don’t start here now later in life you won’t be able to take the big plunge.”

On top of that, it’s obvious in speaking to Chitnis, that a sense of adventure and challenge has also been a large driver.

Bombay precedent

Some Bombay lawyers who moved mid-career to the Supreme Court before him include senior advocates such as the late Goolam Vahanvati, Ashok Desai, Tehmtan R Andhyarujina and Indira Jaising - designated Bombay high court seniors who shifted base on acquiring high central government posts.

They also include designated Bombay high court seniors who move to the apex court without high constitutional posts, such as Shyam Dewan, CU Singh, Shekhar Naphade and JP Cama. Then there are also the likes of Arvind Sawant, VA Mohta and BH Marlapalle – former Bombay high court judges who now practice in the Supreme Court.

And like Chitnis, there’s also the rare move of (now) senior advocate Anant Bhushan Kanade, who used to practice before the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court but moved to the highest court before he was designated a senior.

The son of Bombay high court senior counsel SR Chitnis, Rahul says that moving to the Supreme Court was always in the plan for him. He started his career in the chambers of intellectual property (IPR) and commercial lawyer senior advocate JI Mehta and went on to build an independent counsel practice in commercial laws and IPR from 1994 onward when Mehta passed away.

Chitnis says that he had waited to make “the plunge” to Delhi until after his son moved to college abroad, after which South Delhi’s Defence Colony has now become his home and office.

The world is Delhi

“You deal with much more different matters [in Delhi]. The breadth of the practice has increased in that sense. Earlier it was restricted to commercial work alone.”

He explains that in Bombay he had hardly dealt with criminal matters on the original side, owing to Maharashtra being a large state with several district courts to attend to the criminal cases – leaving the HC as an appellate court. His exposure to various tribunals has also increased here, he said, with matters coming in from the Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Consumer Commission, the Company Law Board and the Intellectual Property Appellate Board.

“I would prefer [my practice in Delhi to grow into a mix of] commercial, IPR and all the other areas, such as land acquisition, the matters that I didn’t do in Bombay. It could be a matrimonial, criminal, commercial or IPR matter. In the Supreme Court you can’t label yourself as a counsel who does x work or y work. All the seniors here are doing everything from civil to commercial to tax. I am open to go into tribunals as well in Delhi.”

Chitnis’ Bombay high court practice was thriving with around five juniors, and government litigation in addition to commercial, constitutional, arbitrations and IPR, when he says he returned 90 per cent of his briefs to Bombay solicitors and firms in order to shift base. Having been briefed by all the major law firms in Bombay, and being part of the inner bar circle there, having held secretarial posts in the Bombay Bar Association and the Bombay high court library, returning to the Bombay bar now would still require starting from scratch for him, he claims.

“I don’t think it will be possible to go back. All my matters are with somebody else now. I’ll have to start new matters. That is not going to be simple. It is again going to be very difficult.”

“I am expecting that work will start coming in [in Delhi], from solicitors who were regularly briefing me in Bombay. A lot of matters [in the Supreme Court] come from Bombay high court. [The solicitors] know me in that sense they would consider me. Instead of coming to Delhi to again start with a different sort of work [I would rely on matters from Bombay],” he says about how he plans to make a living here, though he does not seem worried. “There is no strategy as such because I think I have proved myself in Bombay. [In Bombay] a lot of solicitors have briefed me. So I hope [they’ll work with me]. That’s the only strategy.”

“A known devil is better than an unknown god,” he muses with his tongue in cheek.

Correction: A typo in two names, now corrected to SR Chitnis and VA Mohta. We regret the errors.