Counsel for top international firms go to India’s highest court today in the latest move in the long-running battle to open up the country’s potentially lucrative legal services market.

Nine UK-based practices, including two magic circle firms, are appearing at the Supreme Court in Delhi to argue in favour of ‘fly in, fly out rules’, which would enable them to continue advising clients in India on matters of non-Indian law.

Eight of the firms have been named as: Norton Rose Fulbright, Herbert Smith Freehills, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Clyde and Co, Ashurst, Eversheds Sutherland and Bird & Bird. Other international firms are also part of the case, though the Gazette understands they are being represented by separate local counsel.

The case will hear an appeal against a 2012 ruling from the Chennai High Court. In that judgment, the court gave foreign firms the right to practise in India on a ‘fly-in, fly-out’ basis. Lawyers were also granted the right to act in commercial arbitrations and also be involved in legal process outsourcing companies. At the time, the ruling was seen as a crucial step towards freeing up India’s legal services market.

However, the Bar Council of India (BCI) appealed against the ruling, appearing in the Supreme Court last week. The Gazette understands the court rejected a request to adjourn the hearing and that the government is keen to see a conclusion to the case so that it can press ahead with long- awaited plans to liberalise India’s legal market.

The case arose from a petition filed by Indian lawyer AK Balaji who asked the BCI to take action against foreign law firms and lawyers allegedly ‘illegally practising’ in India. It centres on the interpretation of India’s Advocates Act 1961 and alleges that, by practising law in India without being registered as an ‘advocate’, foreign lawyers are in breach of the act.

The Law Society has long called for and tried to facilitate the liberalisation of the Indian legal market. Last year, then Law Society president Robert Bourns told the Gazette that the Society had been working with counterparts in India to support this process. ‘We hope liberalisation will also lead to English and Welsh solicitors being able to collaborate more effectively with their Indian colleagues by establishing a permanent presence in India,’ he added.

Should the Chennai court’s judgment be upheld, the government would be in a better position to pursue plans to liberalise the Indian market. Speculation over a breakthrough has surfaced regularly over the past 20 years. However, the prospect of overseas firms formally entering the market remains remote. The Chennai judgment states that: ‘Foreign law firms or foreign lawyers cannot practise the profession of the law in India either on the litigation or non-litigation side, unless they fulfil the requirement of the Advocates Act 1961 and the Bar Council of India Rules.’