If somebody has been detained, the useful part is below
This page starts with what to do in the next hour rather than with what we think of ourselves. The rest of the practice is underneath it.
If you or somebody you know has been detained
Six things, in order. None of them requires a lawyer to have arrived, and all six are worth knowing before one has.
Ask what the arrest is under
The section and whether it is a cognisable offence. It is not an unreasonable question and the answer determines almost everything that follows, including whether bail is a police-station matter or a court one.
One person must be informed
A relative or a friend of the detained person’s choosing has to be told, and the fact that they were told is recorded. This right exists from the first minute and does not depend on anybody agreeing it does.
A lawyer may be present during questioning
Not for the whole interrogation in every case, but present. Ask for one and say you would prefer to wait; a request recorded is a request that happened.
Sign nothing you have not read
Including a statement somebody else has written out. If you cannot read it comfortably in the language it is in, say so and say it again while somebody writes it down.
Note the time and the station
Whoever is outside should write down when the detention began and where. Twenty-four hours is a real limit and it is measured from a moment somebody has to be able to state.
Then telephone
Us or anybody else. The clerk answers between eight and ten at night and the number is on this page — and if we are not the right chambers we will say so on that call and name two who are.
What this practice takes on
Three things, and a longer list we decline. A criminal practice that takes everything is a practice where somebody is appearing in a matter they have not read properly.
Economic offences
Cheating, forgery, and the company-law prosecutions that follow a commercial dispute. The largest part of the practice and the reason the chambers exists.
Bail and anticipatory bail
At every level. What we will not do is tell you on the telephone what a court is likely to do — nobody can, and an advocate who does is selling you a feeling.
Appeals and revisions
Including matters conducted below by somebody else, which is most of them. We will read the trial record before saying anything about the appeal, and that reading is billed.
What we decline
Matrimonial cruelty, narcotics and anything involving a child. Not a judgement about the work — they are specialisms and we are not in them, and the two Bombay chambers we send them to are better at it than we would be.
Fees, and what they are not
Four facts about how this practice charges. There is no figure on this page about any matter, because an advocate in India may not publish one.
The chambers
Two rooms above a bookseller, with the sessions court five minutes away on foot. The clerk is there from nine and somebody answers the telephone until ten at night — which is a fact about the rota rather than a claim to be available at any hour.
Asked on the first call
Four answers, and the first is the question everybody asks and no advocate in India may answer.
What are your chances of getting bail?
We will not give you a percentage, and it is not modesty — Rule 36 of the Bar Council of India Rules restricts what an advocate may publish about their own practice, and a success rate is squarely inside it. It is also, separately, a number nobody can compute honestly: bail turns on the section, the record and the judge, and any advocate quoting you a figure is describing a feeling as arithmetic.
Can you come to the police station tonight?
Somebody from chambers can usually attend, and we will tell you on the call whether it will be tonight or in the morning rather than say yes and rearrange it. What we will not do is advertise a round-the-clock service, because it is the kind of claim the Rules are actually written against.
What does the first conference cost?
Nothing, and it is a real conference rather than a sales meeting — bring whatever paper exists. If the matter is one we should not be running, that is what you will be told in it.
Will my case be discussed publicly?
No. There are no testimonials on this website and there will not be, because a criminal client’s endorsement is a disclosure of their own prosecution — and consent given by somebody facing one is not consent that survives the year.
The clerk answers until ten
If this is not a matter for these chambers, the call will end with two names that it is. That is worth the telephone call either way.