Our Lawyers, Serving Clients Across Gujarat
Our lawyers · Mahendra Bhavsar & Co.
Mahendra Bhavsar & Co. is a Gujarat-focused law firm, headquartered in Ahmedabad since 1982. The firm acts for multinational groups, international banks and institutions, public authorities abroad and foreign law firms, and for Indian companies, promoters, business families, investors, HNIs and NRI and OCI families, in matters across Gujarat, India and internationally, from the first advice to final appeal before the Supreme Court of India.
The work the firm carries is the work that matters most to a client: an acquisition with difficult title, a dispute that crosses borders, a family estate spread across continents, an investment that must clear land, approvals and contracts before it can begin.
Approach·Courts·Practices·Investing in Gujarat·Across Gujarat·Partners
Since 1982
Gujarat-focused law firm, headquartered in Ahmedabad
Supreme Court
to district courts, tribunals and revenue authorities
Ten practices
One Gujarat team behind each
IBLJ 2026
Named a winner: Arbitration & ADR and Real Estate (Ahmedabad)
Approach
How does the firm work on a matter?
The firm’s senior lawyers lead its work. A matter begins with an understanding of the client’s objective and the issues in play, and the firm looks at it as a whole, so each step is taken with the next one in mind.
Mahendra Bhavsar & Co. works with a network of affiliated firms of chartered accountants and company secretaries, and with established advocates across Gujarat.
Mahendra Bhavsar & Co. is selective about the matters it accepts, so that each client it takes on receives the attention the matter deserves.
Courts and tribunals
Which courts and tribunals do the firm’s lawyers appear before?
The firm’s lawyers and advocates appear before courts, tribunals and authorities at every level at which Gujarat work is decided: the Supreme Court of India, the High Court of Gujarat, NCLT Ahmedabad and the NCLAT, the Commercial Courts, the City Civil Court, Ahmedabad, district courts across Gujarat, revenue authorities, and arbitral tribunals in domestic and international arbitration.
Practices
What areas of law does the firm cover?
Mahendra Bhavsar & Co. organises its work in ten practices, with one Gujarat team behind each, so the land, contracts, finance and any dispute on a matter stay together.
Real Estate, Land & Development
Title, industrial land and GIDC, development and property disputes.
Corporate & Business Transactions
India entry, joint ventures, acquisitions and NCLT company matters.
Commercial Contracts, Manufacturing & Trade
Supply, manufacturing and distribution contracts, customs advisory and project imports.
Dispute Resolution, Litigation & Arbitration
Litigation, arbitration, insolvency and the enforcement of decrees and awards.
Projects, Infrastructure, Construction & Energy
EPC and construction contracts, concessions, energy projects and project claims.
Banking & Institutional Finance
Indian-law counsel on lending, security and finance with a Gujarat connection.
Domestic & NRI Succession, Property & Family Business
Inheritance, family property, settlements and family business, including OCI and citizenship questions.
Technology, Data & Intellectual Property
Technology contracts, data terms, and trade mark, copyright and trade-secret disputes.
Employment, Immigration & Global Mobility
For employers: workforce matters, expatriate staff, visas and FRRO.
International & Cross-Border Tax
Inbound and cross-border structuring, treaty and permanent-establishment questions, and NRI tax.
Focus area
Property, inheritance, succession and family business in Gujarat, for families who live abroad.
Focus area
Indian counsel for overseas companies, banks and law firms, from opinions to arbitration and enforcement.
The firm also advises businesses across Gujarat’s major industries, including manufacturing, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automotive and engineering, electronics, energy, infrastructure, technology, logistics, textiles, diamonds and jewellery, ceramics and agro-food: see industries the firm serves. For semiconductor and electronics projects at Dholera and Sanand, see semiconductor and electronics work in Gujarat.
Investing in Gujarat
Does the firm advise multinational and Indian companies investing in Gujarat?
Yes. Mahendra Bhavsar & Co. advises multinational and Indian companies investing in Gujarat, from industrial and infrastructure projects, manufacturing plants, GIDC estates, special economic zones, GIFT City and the Dholera Special Investment Region to offices and global capability centres. The firm covers the full legal life of the investment, from structure and land to project contracts, commercial agreements and protection if a dispute arises.
Across Gujarat and abroad
Does the firm act for clients across Gujarat, NRIs and overseas companies?
Yes. Mahendra Bhavsar & Co. acts for clients throughout Gujarat, including Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and Gandhinagar, with a full team in Surat for South Gujarat assignments. NRIs, overseas companies and foreign law firms instruct the firm and follow their matters by email and video call, without needing to travel. The firm works in English, Gujarati and Hindi.
Discuss a legal matter with the firm.
Meet Our Partners
Chanakya Bhavsar
Managing Partner
B.A., B.Sc. (IT), LL.B (Hons) (Liverpool), Postgraduate (Oxford)
Chanakya Bhavsar is the Managing Partner of Mahendra Bhavsar & Co., a Gujarat-focused law firm headquartered in Ahmedabad. Since 2008, he has built his practice within the firm and led its growth into a national and international practice. He leads the firm’s strategy and its most complex and high-value matters.
Clients bring him matters where the stakes are high and the issues cross borders, sectors and areas of law. He advises and acts for multinational and Indian companies, promoters and family business groups, investors, institutions, high-net-worth individuals and NRIs. His work covers corporate, commercial, transactional, property and dispute resolution matters, in Gujarat, across India and internationally. Educated in law in England, at Liverpool and Oxford, he works readily with counsel, boards and lenders in the United Kingdom and other common-law jurisdictions.
International clients
Multinational companies, international banks, public authorities abroad, international institutions and foreign law firms instruct him as Indian counsel. He advises international and Indian businesses investing in Gujarat on matters ranging from industrial and infrastructure projects, GIDC estates, special economic zones, GIFT City and the Dholera Special Investment Region to offices and global capability centres. The sectors his matters reach include manufacturing and engineering, chemicals, infrastructure, ports and airports, banking and finance, technology and real estate.
Disputes, litigation and arbitration
He leads the firm’s disputes and appears personally when appropriate, before the High Court of Gujarat and other courts and tribunals. He leads its significant disputes in domestic and international arbitration, and the firm’s disputes work under his leadership extends to the Supreme Court of India. Clients look to him to shape the strategy from the outset and carry it through to resolution, with the result their business needs in view.
Selected work of the firm under his leadership
Under his leadership the firm acts on cross-border instructions from clients and law firms on four continents, on high-stakes disputes and on the projects of foreign groups in Gujarat. Its work has included:
Indian counsel to law firms in the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Austria and Italy, for their clients’ Indian-law opinions, due diligence, litigation and arbitration, property and finance documents, and company formation;
defending international and development finance institutions in high-value commercial litigation in Gujarat, including questions of immunity and jurisdiction;
acting for and against the enforcement in India of foreign arbitral awards and judgments, including objections to jurisdiction;
acting to restrain parallel foreign proceedings brought in breach of the parties’ agreement on jurisdiction, and working alongside counsel in the United States and China on cross-border bankruptcy and arbitration;
acting for overseas suppliers and Indian companies seeking interim measures in support of arbitration;
acting for foreign manufacturing groups and joint ventures setting up in Gujarat, from industrial land and phased plant development to the import of large-scale plant and machinery, with the approvals, employment policies and vendor contracts that go with them;
advising international banks on Indian law for external commercial borrowing and for lending secured on Gujarat assets;
advising a European specialty-chemicals group on a proposed Indian joint venture and the relocation of a manufacturing plant from Europe, from the relocation roadmap to the share purchase documents;
Indian-law opinions for European banks and their counsel on finance, security and enforcement, including for equipment supplies financed into India;
advising an international airport group on Indian law for its proposed investment and business arrangements in India;
advising a Gulf-based infrastructure group on the risk allocation and bankability of a port concession outside India;
acting for European equipment suppliers in insolvency and recovery proceedings against Indian buyers, and for overseas companies executing decrees in India;
acting for an overseas technology group in trade mark suits in Surat, instructed through its foreign counsel;
advising a municipal corporation in Gujarat on its concession agreements.
More on this work: International practice · Disputes and arbitration · Industries in Gujarat
Speaking and industry engagement
Chanakya Bhavsar speaks to universities, trade associations, industry bodies and government-backed programmes on international trade, commercial contracts, arbitration, technology and intellectual property. Recent sessions include webinars with the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development on intellectual property in innovation and entrepreneurship (2024); a conference at Parul University, Vadodara, on intellectual property in technology and startups (2024); a panel on digitisation and global value chains for Indian MSMEs in Ahmedabad (2023); and seminars at Indrashil University and H L College of Commerce, Ahmedabad. His sessions explain how disputes arise in cross-border supply and export contracts, how arbitration clauses and governing-law choices work in practice, and how growing businesses protect their ideas, data and brands. The same practical understanding informs the firm’s advice to exporters, manufacturers and technology businesses in Gujarat and abroad.
Practice focus
Mahendra Bhavsar
Founder and Senior Partner
B.Sc., LL.B.
Mahendra Bhavsar founded Mahendra Bhavsar & Co. in 1982 and has practised law for over four decades. Under his leadership, the firm grew into a Gujarat-focused law firm, headquartered in Ahmedabad, that acts for businesses, institutions, families and individuals across Gujarat, India and overseas.
His experience spans the full range of business, commercial and private client law. It covers corporate and commercial matters, transactions and investments, property and land, disputes, succession, and the affairs of family-owned businesses and NRIs. Clients value that breadth because he sees how a legal question affects the whole business or family, not just the issue in front of it.
Senior adviser
Promoters, business families, institutions and NRIs turn to him as a senior adviser on their most important decisions. These include major investments and acquisitions, sensitive negotiations, family and business succession, and the strategy behind significant disputes. His judgement, his knowledge of Gujarat law and practice, and his commitment to ethical practice have defined the firm since 1982. He continues to guide the firm’s direction and oversees its most significant matters.
Approachable, clear and effective
Clients work directly with lawyers who listen, explain their position in plain terms and give clear answers to complex legal problems, in English, Gujarati or Hindi.
Selected work of the firm in his areas of practice
Property, succession and family business sit at the heart of the practice he built, and the firm continues that work for families and businesses in Gujarat and abroad. It has included:
acting for families in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand on their Gujarat property and succession: sales, purchases and gifts through powers of attorney signed abroad, adjudication and stamp duty, and wills and codicils;
proving title through searches across registration, revenue and property-tax records and the reconstruction of old transactions, mutation entries and partitions;
acting on industrial property acquisitions that needed lender-consortium consents and the release of existing charges;
acting for industrial clients on the acquisition, transfer and sub-lease of GIDC plots;
acting for the Indian companies of global groups on property, title, leases and registration;
advising overseas clients, instructed through their lawyers in Italy and the Gulf, on property and loan documents and title requirements;
land diligence for an Asian industrial group acquiring land in Gujarat, from site visits and land records to checks on disputed parcels;
local enquiries and site inspections on property, loan and mortgage documents, instructed by counsel in the United States;
acting in partition, family settlement and guardianship matters before revenue authorities, civil courts and the High Court of Gujarat.
The firm acts on matters arising across Gujarat, including Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Jamnagar, Navsari, Bardoli, Mehsana, Gandhinagar and Amreli.
More on this work: Real estate and property · Private client and NRI · Family business
Practice focus
Recognition. India Business Law Journal, Regional Law Firm Awards 2026: the firm was named a winner in Arbitration & ADR (Ahmedabad) and Real Estate (Ahmedabad). The firm is listed in The Legal 500 Asia Pacific and in Asia IP.
Engage with Us
To discuss a matter in Gujarat or elsewhere in India, contact the firm. Please do not send confidential documents until the firm has completed its conflict check.