Gourab Banerji Signs MoU with NALSAR to Launch Milon K Banerji Center for Arbitration Law

Senior Advocate Gourab Banerji has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to fund the Milon K Banerji Center for Arbitration Law at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Former Supreme Court judge (retd) Rohinton Fali Nariman will be the chairman of the Center and senior advocate Ritin Rai will be the co-chairman. Banerji is a donor and patron.

The Center board will also include NALSAR alumni Dr. Amit George (class of 2009) as director (research) and Shreya Parik (class of 2011) and Chand Chopra (class of 2012) as Associate Directors (Research).

The center is named in honor of Banerji’s father, the late Milon K. Banerji, an eminent lawyer who served two terms as Attorney General of India from 1992 to 1996 and from 2004 to 2009.

The Center is conceptualized as a research and education center for legal scholars, practitioners and policy makers to exchange ideas, educate and contribute to the evolution of arbitration practices.

Speaking about the collaboration with NALSAR to establish the Centre, Banerji said in a press release:

“I am extremely pleased that NALSAR and I are working together to advance the cause of arbitration in academia. Arbitration was my father’s first and abiding passion during his days in the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court. In Secretary, Irrigation Department, Government of Orissa and Ors v GC Roy and Orsit was his research that uncovered a ruling by the Supreme Court of Australia (Government Insurance Office of NSW v Atkinson-Leighton Joint Venture) and tipped the balance and convinced the Court to rule that the arbitrator had the power to award pendente lite interest. This collaboration with NALSAR would, I hope, be a fitting tribute to honoring his academic spirit and love of research.”

NALSAR Vice Chancellor Prof. Srikrishna Deva Rao thanked Banerji for the grant and said:

“We are grateful to Mr. Gourab Banerji for this grant, which will help establish a Center that we hope will be at the forefront of arbitration law conversations in the years to come. As I have said in the past, at NALSAR we are embarking on a journey with a renewed focus on research and scholarship, the results of which are intended to benefit not only the academic cohort at the University, but also the wider legal community across the country. and abroad. With the best minds of the legal fraternity guiding the Center, this venture, which will hopefully be the first of many, is a wonderful first step in this journey of pedagogical revitalization.”