Harish Salve is a Senior Advocate practicing in the Supreme Court of India. On January 16, 2020, he was appointed as a Queen’s Counsel (QC) for the Courts of England and Wales. Queen’s Counsel or “Silk’ as they are called, are seasoned Advocates having exceptional knowledge and achievements in one or various fields of law. Only Advocates, who have rights of audience in the higher Courts of England and Wales and have demonstrated the competencies in the Competency Framework to a standard of excellence, are appointed thus. Mr Salve began his career at J.B. Dadachandji & Co., initially as an intern and later as a full-time lawyer. As a law officer for the Union of India, he conducted a large number of important matters like the first anti-dumping case in the Supreme Court of India, the first case of privatization of PSUs, and many more. He has handled many high profile cases. He served as the Solicitor General of India from November 1999 to November 2002. He has also been appointed as Amicus Curiae by the Supreme Court in some cases.

Mr Salve appeared for Bilkis Bano, a victim of the Gujarat Riots, at the behest of the National Human Rights Commission in 2003. He was admitted to the English Bar in 2013 and subsequently joined the Blackstone Chambers. He is known to have successfully handled several high-profile corporate cases. He is believed to have played a big part in the Supreme Court striking down the draconian section 66A of the Information Technology Act that made posting “offensive” comments online a crime punishable with imprisonment. In May 2017, he represented India before the International Court of Justice in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case. Mr Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage. Mr Salve’s strong arguments to defend India came to be widely appreciated. He charged only Re 1 as legal fees for the case. Also in 2017, he became the first Indian lawyer allowed to fight a case in Singapore’s Court of Appeal where he represented former Ranbaxy promoters, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, in their appeal challenging an arbitration award in favor of Daiichi Sankyo in Singapore. His clients include business tycoons like Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata to veteran politicians Mulayam Singh Yadav, Prakash Singh Badal and many others.

Mr Salve completed his graduation in Commerce and LLB from Nagpur University. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2015. Chambers and Partners 2018 said, “He has managed to establish a giant reputation in International Arbitration.”