Silly Sit-Downs with Rohan (SSD-07): An interview with Jyoti Prasad Patri, Advocate at Odisha High Court
Hello everyone, hope you are having a good time and enjoying your life. I, Rohan Singh, welcome you again to the new edition of Silly Sit-Downs(SSD) with Rohan — an interview series with industry professionals irrespective of their genre; the purpose of these interviews is to have insightful conversations, understand people better and get rich perspicuity into career and community.
Today, we have Jyoti Prasad Patri, a practicing Advocate at Odisha High Court. Graduated from Symbiosis Law School Noida with a BBA Bachelor of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Laws he has more than 7 years of legal experience across various judicial forums including the High Court of Odisha and the High Court of Delhi with experience in Commercial Litigation, Real Estate laws, Due Diligence, Contractual Agreements, Legal Advisory, and Arbitration. In 7+ years of his legal career, he has associated with Indus Towers, S M Law Chambers, Athena Legal, Indresh Upadhyay & Associates, various High Courts, and Tribunal Courts in India, and has worked with prominent legal personalities.
I would like to thank Jyoti Prasad Patri for taking out time from his schedule for this interview :)
Rohan: Hi Jyoti, welcome to Silly Sit Downs with Rohan, first I would like to express my gratitude for making time for me. A big thanks, how is your life going?
J P Patri: Hi Rohan, my pleasure, thanks for this opportunity. I am doing good, it is hot here (chuckles). How about you? How is Armenia?
Rohan: I am good too, thanks for asking. It is hot here too. Armenian summers are hot.
Rohan: Jyoti, I want to know about your legal journey and experience.
J P Patri: I am Jyoti Prasad Patri, I was born and brought up in the historic and old city of Odisha — Cuttack. In 2012, I joined Symbiosis Law School Noida pursuing for an an integrated degree in Bachelor of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Laws. After graduation, I joined and started my initial legal practice at Athena Legal Law Firm in New Delhi in Civil Laws and Commercial Laws. Further, I was exposed to Real Estate Laws, & Insolvency Laws introduced in 2016–17. I practiced before the High Court and District Courts of Delhi. I had chances of appearing alongside esteemed seniors before the Honorable Supreme Court as well. Then I moved to practice before the Trial Court.
Rohan: Sorry to interrupt, but why did you move to Trial Court?
J P Patri: See, the high courts and the Supreme Court are only appellate forums but trial courts and district courts are where actions happen like “judge sahab, tareek pe tareek!!! (Mi Lord, new dates!!!)” or cross-examination, etc and I personally think that at Athena Legal I was more into consumer or real estate centric practice. However, I wanted to get some trial exposure.
Rohan: Understood, please resume.
J P Patri: Then I joined Indresh Upadhyay & Associates, a law firm wherein I independently dealt with cases pertaining to real estate litigations and criminal cases like murder, dowry deaths, etc. I traveled to various states of India like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, etc representing our clients.
I moved back to Cuttack in December 2019 and joined SM Law Chambers just before the onset of COVID-19. I went into practice before the trial courts, Odisha High Court, and different benches — the Railway Claims tribunal, Debt Recovery Tribunal, NCLT bench, Real Estate Tribunals (RERA) and Odisha being a mining state, here I also got exposure to handling Mining Laws. With the continuation of the real estate laws, I started streamlining it more towards arbitration and commercial drafting and I delved more into the transaction parts of the real estate as earlier I was dealing and handling litigation only. Brokering negotiating deals on behalf of clients, drafting transactional documents, negotiating terms sheets, and drafting business restructuring transaction agreements were something I was further exposed into.
Later for in-house experience, I joined Indus Towers Ltd. in the position of Assistant Manager Legal for Odisha wherein we were into Telecom Laws, another shift in my career and I was exposed to more transactions and drafting contractual agreements, due diligence, vendor contracts, and legal advisory. Here I learned how corporations work, representing companies in-house capacity and all.
At present, I have my own office in Bhubhaneshwar, Odisha and I am handling the aforementioned, primarily commercial litigation and commercial drafting across India. This has been an incredible journey of around seven and a half years still now varied across different domains and judicial forums of India.
Rohan: Amazed, I am just amazed by your journey, I am pretty sure that you have more stories to tell us. I am enjoying this SSD more now.
You mentioned commercial laws and civil laws, would you mind explaining those in a brief here?
J P Patri: Sure. Traditionally it was always about “zameen ke vakil, zameen dekhta hai, tum zameen ke vakil ho (Lawyer for land, you handle land, you are the lawyer for land laws)”; around the 1950s and '60s, I mean. But with time we have realized that civil laws do not only relate to real estate or immovable properties. They show a lot of things like civil disputes between neighbors — for example, land encroachment, contracts, etc. Anything that is not criminal in nature as per the defined scheduled or the laws under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or any specific statutes is referred to as Civil Law. Civil Law is a very wide term and we have commercial litigation, contract violations, breaching business transactions, etc underneath. With the onset of new concepts like arbitration, insolvency & bankruptcy court — specifically dealing with companies and individuals. With this, a label has come up as commercial litigation because those are all for commercial purposes and for gains.
In a nutshell, commercial laws and commercial litigation are always a part of civil laws, or civil Litigation like ML is a part of AI, in mathematical terms commercial laws are a subset of civil laws. Its nature is civil, but only because nature is business enterprises or corporations are involved and the amount involved is also huge and we call it commercial litigation to put in a basic layman terminology.
Rohan: Okay, in my industry, Machine Learning (ML) is a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI). ML can be likened to commercial laws and commercial litigation, while AI encompasses broader concepts akin to civil laws.
I see you’ve been in the litigation and in-house for several years as you mentioned. What are the major differences that you’ve observed? Please start by explaining the terms litigation and in-house.
J P Patri: Litigation is something where a case is presented before a court and an advocate or lawyer represents a client for the whole process — starting from filing the case till the judgment is delivered. It might be civil, criminal, commercial, etc. Here advocates are consultants, they are on a retainer basis or an appointment basis through the client.
Whereas in-house is a type or a nature of the job. With the passage of time, the realization that corporations, conglomerates, and business enterprises to have a strong legal team has increased to protect their interest initially rather than being exposed to such high risks at a later point in time. Those legal teams are termed as in-house teams.
Rohan: So, rather than going to the court you have your own team of lawyers, I would say to save or secure a company in terms of legal things. Is my understanding correct?
J P Patri: Partially. The major difference is in-house legal team work for their company or business enterprises. They do not entertain other lawyers or other clients or issues. When the issue escalates then it is being referred to some advocate or lawyer for expert opinion who will present that company before the court.
But being a litigation lawyer I can take up matters from that X company along with a, b, c, d… companies.
Rohan: Can the in-house legal team represent the company in court or external advocate is mandatory?
J P Patri: No. As per the Bar Council of India, lawyers cannot be employees. Hence they can’t.
Rohan: What is your preference — in-house or litigation?
J P Patri: I would like to start the answer with a disclaimer, haha. That’s subjective.
We all move from litigation to in-house and that is the general notion. In-houses have better-paying capacity and work-life balance again this also varies from in-house to in-house. Financial Stability is the key differentiating factor here in my humble opinion. The income capacity of litigation lawyers has no limit but in-house it is fixed. A lot of people do change from in-house to litigation and the other way around. Since you have asked about my preference; I moved from litigation to in-house and after spending quite some time I have moved back into litigation practice and started my own. It clearly proves my fondness for litigation. In litigation the world is very dynamic, you face new problems every day, and you face clients face-to-face, the judge too. You defend a client at your best whereas in-house more or less the issues revolve around a couple of issues.
Rohan: You also mentioned this word — arbitration. Can you shed some light on this? Also, I want to know your thoughts on it as compared to the litigation.
J P Patri: That’s a good question and I want people to be aware of this word and what it is all about. With the increasing number of cases and the limited number of judges, the ratio is quite skewed. The number of pending cases has increased rapidly. Time is the essence of everything. To fix this major issue and to promote Alternative Dispute Resolution or ADR mechanism was introduced. ADR entails arbitration, mediation, and negotiation. rbitration has been given legal backing and a special statute called the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 which was further amended in 2015. The entire purpose was to create tribunals or courts outside the court to adjudicate disputes between the parties. So arbitration is a process of forming a tribunal called the arbitral tribunal which has the powers of a court but it is outside the court wherein the parties sit across tables presided over by an arbitrator or judge who will adjudicate the disputes between the parties; no doubt arbitration isn’t faster mechanism due to a closed environment. The sole tribunal and the arbitrator have been formed just to hear out the specific issues of the 2 parties.
The litigations can go on lingering up to 8–10 years because people will be losing a lot of time and money. Just to fasten this mechanism and for the adjudication of the issues in the same manner, which a court will do, arbitrations have been introduced and arbitral tribunals have been introduced. India has been promoting arbitrations; we have the Delhi International Center of Arbitrations, Hyderabad International Center of Arbitration, Odisha Arbitration Center, etc. Everyone has their own centers of arbitrations where it is being promoted on a very extensive level.
Rohan: Do fast-track courts come under arbitration? Is this a good example of arbitration?
J P Patri: Yes, correct. I agree. Fast track courts are basically for criminal matters wherein you seek permission from courts to fast track this due to its nature. But yes to put it in very layman’s terms arbitration is outside court for resolving disputes in a faster way.
Rohan: As you mentioned it is fast and rapid and it is being promoted at a greater level though I see arbitrations are lesser in numbers as compared to litigation despite being advantageous. Why people are more inclined toward litigation?
J P Patri: The basic fundamental thing for arbitration is you need to have an arbitration agreement. To invoke an arbitration we need it. You might have seen written in clauses or contracts or T&Cs — “In case of disputes between two parties, the disputes may be referred to be adjudicated by a sole arbitrator mutually appointed by parties under”. This shows the intention of the parties to arbitrate. In the absence of this arbitration clause between the parties we have to approach the court. This is one.
Second in my opinion is a lack of awareness because, at the grassroots level, arbitrations have not been reached. For example, let’s say I have a land dispute and I want immediate relief from the court however with the other disputing party, I do not have any agreement. In such a scenario, I am bound to go to court because arbitration cannot be invoked automatically.
Third would be that arbitration is an expensive process, the act defines its fees per se which could be expensive or cheap depending on business or individuals and even depends on disputes. It is not a straight jacket formula.
Rohan: When did this arbitration act come into force?
J P Patri: In 1996, it’s just been 28 years but other laws like Civil Law have existed since colonial times.
Rohan: Since you have handled real estate cases, you and I and everyone have been seeing a lot of buildings being demolished or vacated after being constructed. Why does it happen? Are there major loopholes in our law or are we lagging somewhere?
J P Patri: In India, we have a very new law called the Real Estate Regulation and Development Authority or RERA that came into existence in 2016. Every state has its own RERA tribunal because the buyers or the allottees of projects were left at no one’s mercy and the builders or the developers were taking undue advantage of gross delays in delivering the position of the flats — 10, 15 years, or more. This new law came into force for better regulation and regularization of the whole real estate sector in India.
Now your question is, why a lot of buildings are being demolished or vacated? Every state has its own building plan approval rules and guidelines however people do violate them. Understand with an example, the permissible construction floor is Ground + 10 or G+12 but the construction happened for G+15 — that’s a clear violation of the law. Another one, what is in the proximity of the building, is it an airport, or defense area, or wildlife sanctuary, or rare migratory birds summer migration lake? All these places have some restrictions like tower height, sustainable practices, eco-friendly things, permissions & clearance, etc. You know developers even ignore fire safety or fire evacuation plans.
There are varied authorities which vary from state to state to monitor the projects, progress, handle the litigation, and monitor who is following the compliance and who isn’t and if those compliances are not met then obviously it has the right to give you a notice or impose penalties and if you do not comply with it further and they have right to demolish the building.
With the onset of RERA, the real estate scenario in India has been regulated to a great extent. The buyers or the allottees are not now left at the mercy of the developers or promoters anymore. They also have their own right and they can fight. The notion “kya wo bade bade builders hain, kya hum ladenge unse (how can we compete and fight with those huge and powerful builders)” has lessened now.
Rohan: So in a nutshell, the reason for those buildings getting demolished is the violation of the law. That’s it. We are not lagging anywhere. We have laws in place and proper authority, and every state has its own tribunal in place. It is just developers or builders who are violating the law and then facing the consequences.
This brings me to my next question, If I wanted to buy or invest in property, particularly in flats or high-rise buildings, what should my checklist include to avoid potential pitfalls?
J P Patri: This basic checklist for flat (not for a plot of land — they have a different checklist).
If you are buying a flat in a project, which has more than 8 flats at least then:-
- Check for RERA Registration.
- Check for approved building plans that have been approved by RERA and concerned municipal corporations.
- Check project details, in case of ongoing projects, check for progress reports. Check the RERA website of that concerned state or the website of the builder or developer.
- For completed projects check for completion certificate and occupancy information.
- Have a word with the seller/developers or builders about the carpet area measurement. It should be measured in the carpet area. By carpet area, I meant the distance from inside the walls of the flat, not from the outside.
- Check the license of the builder.
- Regularly visit the site for progress, do visit the area nearby.
- Check for the payment plan.
Rohan: Thanks for the list Jyoti, I want to shift the topic to another question — Digitization proliferated in India and influenced each sector. What about the legal fraternity? How has it influenced you and others in the legal profession?
J P Patri: Technology is now playing a major role in the legal fraternity. The brightest example would be the onset of COVID-19 the legal fraternity was affected because prior to that, it was all pen-paper and manual but now it is all online. All court hearings these days function in a hybrid manner or only on a video call manner. There are courts and tribunals that till today after 3 or 4 years of COVID-19 are still functioning in only video call mode. I think this is one of the greatest contributions of technology to the conduct of judicial proceedings online and at present you can watch live proceedings on YouTube of various High courts and the honorable Supreme Court. Sitting in a different city or nation like in your case only, you are able to watch live proceedings of a court, I think it’s massive. I had video call arbitration in Delhi and I was conducting it from my hometown.
For individual lawyers; you must have seen lawyers piles of huge volumes of books decked up in their chambers and offices. Now we have proper software available on my laptop and phone and has everything and is replacing those heavy books. We have legal databases like ManuPatra, SCC Online, LexisNexis India, etc. Plus with digitization, we are striving for complete non-paper-based filing and a few courts like the Delhi High Court have started. The volume of papers has reduced. Every high court is adopting new technologies. For the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) all filings are online.
That is how technology has developed and helped us. We are now heavily dependent on technology for our collaboration with other peers around India and researching & drafting skills. Not referring to ChatGPT or anything AI software, legal software, and databases, they might be using in AI but still, human intelligence is primary here.
Rohan: Wowww, I am amazed. My perspective on legal hearings and all has totally changed now after your answer. I was under the impression that video call hearings happened during COVID-19 times and started to diminish but I was sooo wrong.
J P Patri: We have been doing this for the last three or four years. The technology has reached but not everywhere like not all district courts and then sub-district court levels like consumer forums. We are still lagging there but those will be digitized in coming years and then you can say the whole legal system of India is digitized.
Rohan: And that would be best testimony of technology where a legal system of a country of 1.4 billion people is fully digitized.
Rohan: One last question before summing up this SSD — I am a big fan of “Suits” and whenever I encounter terms like legal, commercial litigation, or lawyer, the first image that comes to mind is from the show. For instance, I often refer to my close legal friend as Harvey Specter. How realistic and connected is this portrayal to the real legal fraternity?
J P Patri: I knew this question was coming, haha. I have been asked this question several times and the answer would be the same and here it is — Things that happen inside the law firm with Harvey’s boss might be realistic but what happens in the court is absolutely different. It varies from nation to nation, state to state, district to district, judge to judge, and case to case; again no straight jacket formula. As shown there same-day hearing, same-day evidence presentation, and same-day judgment are against the grain. You cannot cut corners in legal or justice delivery. The procedures need to be followed, the principles of natural justice need to be protected and everyone has to be given a fair chance to present. Nothing happens in a day. Although there are instances wherein we can apply for application and argue and secure a partial order, but not a judgment as depicted there. All those fancy lawyers in 3-piece suits with luxury cars, all those depend on clients [chuckles]. If the client pays me well, I’ll be in a 3-piece fancy suit but remember not all clients can do it. On a very lighter note, yes, negotiations and client interactions might happen in a Suits way but not in every case. My profession coin also has two sides, on one side we have big, successful (might or might be not expensive) lawyers, on the other side we have struggling lawyers trying to make a livelihood in this scorching summer.
Rohan: I think we need more SSDs to talk about legal topics but right now I have to sum up this SSD here. Thanks a lot, it was great and informative talking to you. Have a good video call arbitration, haha, catch you soon.
J P Patri: Haha, thanks Rohan, it was indeed a pleasure conversing with you. Good day, bye.
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