Bharti Airtel has hired R Sundar Rajan, who was chief of legal at infrastructure firm GMR, to head its legal department, ending a nine-month search, reports ET.

Rajan has replaced Mukesh Bhavnani, who had left Bharti in April this year to join Vedanta as Chief Legal Officer.

Rajan, who joined Bharti in the first week of this month, is in charge of secretarial, compliance and legal matters including mergers and acquisitions and litigation.

According to ET, Bhavnani has resigned from Vedanta too and plans to start his own legal practice in policy advocacy and regulatory litigation.