Managing Partner of PDS Legal Tarun Gulati is among the 75 lawyers recently designated as Senior Advocates by the Allahabad High Court.
In addition to being a lawyer, Tarun Gulati is a Chartered Accountant. He graduated in law while simultaneously practicing CA. He started his law practice after enrolling at the Allahabad Bar in 1994. After practicing as a CA for three years, he switched to law practice full-time in 1997.
After a short stint practicing at Allahabad, Gulati moved to Delhi to join Senior Advocate Joseph Vellapally. Speaking to Bar & Bench, Gulati said of Vellapally,
“He was one of the most renowned tax practitioners in the Supreme Court at that time.”
After spending five years with Vellapally, Gulati set up the Delhi office of Economic Law Partners. He worked with ELP for ten years, before moving to PDS Legal exactly six years ago, in May 2013. He was made Managing Partner of the firm last year.
Although he worked for a law firm, Gulati has been appearing as counsel in various courts for the last two decades. He specialises in tax, trade, and other commercial laws.
Gulati says that the sheer number of designations this time around needs to be seen in context.
“The Allahabad High Court is one of the largest courts in the world. It has 109 sitting judges and a Bar that is 30,000-strong. The 75 designations are between two very large Benches – at Allahabad and Lucknow.”
The last round of designations that occurred at the Allahabad High Court was four years back, when 12 lawyers were offered the gown.
Gulati concludes that the High Court’s endeavour to develop the Senior Bar will offer more choice to the litigants of the jurisdiction.
The designations have come under the challenge before the Allahabad High Court. The plea by Advocate Vishnu Bihari Tiwari has alleged that the selection norms put in place by the Supreme Court were ignored in the process adopted by the High Court.