Law & Ease of Doing Business

India is looking majorly at infrastructure building to meet its growth targets. The recent Union budget spells this out clearly and there is a very high degree of focus at the Center with the announcement of PM Gatishakti. What has been seen thus far is that there are huge time and cost overruns in existing projects. The average cost overrun for time delayed projects is upwards of forty percent.

In 2014, India was ranked 142 out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Rankings. Since then, India has catapulted 79 positions to 63 in the 2020 rankings. The World Bank credited this mercurial rise to India’s major policy reforms including the creation of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 and the removal of red-tapeism in starting obtaining permits.

India has been constantly improving its record on the measuring yardstick of ease of doing business. That being said there is a lot that still remains to be done. For example, India incurs a large cost every year because of delays in major infrastructure projects and the legal complexities associated with such delays. The presence of an effective arbitration and mediation mechanism can reduce the legal pressures that businesses in India face leading to monetary loss and contractual delays.

It is felt that the IBC has been a game changer in the realm of economic legislations. Five years into its introduction, the IBC is a well-oiled apparatus, with a thriving ecosystem comprising of about 3500 Insolvency Professionals, three Insolvency Professional Agencies, about 80 Insolvency Professional Entities, one Information Utility, 16 Registered Valuer Organisations, more than 3900 Registered Valuers, several benches of the Adjudicating Authority with pan India presence and a massive volume of jurisprudence that has facilitated the cause of the Code time and again.

Dr Lalit Bhasin started his law practice in 1962 and has developed Bhasin & Co as one of the largest law Firms in North India. His areas of specialisation include Employment & Labour Laws, Corporate Law (Formation of Joint Venture Companies, Foreign Collaborations, Amalgamations, Mergers, Acquisitions, Disinvestment); Laws relating to Information Technology; Contract and Conveyancing; Constitutional Law; Banking and Finance; Consumer Protection Laws; Disputes relating to Foreign Investment e.g. Shareholders Agreements, Collaboration Agreements, Agency and Distribution Agreements, Technology Transfer Agreements and Dispute Resolution Practice.