"You are never too old to set another Goal or to dream a New One"

Lets learn how CA @Shivashish Karanai make it to the world of law and what it takes for a Chartered Accountant to be a High Court Lawyer in India..!

- He is CA, LL.B., and is practicing as an Advocate before Delhi High Court and sub-ordinate Courts/Tribunals.

- He is associated with Vidhimaan’s GST Professionals’ journal as Executive Editor and authored 3 books (on GST Laws and Contract laws).

- He is regularly invited by Bar Associations/CA Study Circles as guest speaker

- He was earlier associated with Ernst and Young in their Corporate Tax practice.

How it all begin?

I joined CA course in year 2009 just after completing higher secondary exams. Chartered Accountancy was a flourishing profession at that point of time and my accountancy teacher recommended me for it.

Being a Marwari and keen interest in mathematics made my interest for this course. I cleared all levels of CA course in first attempt. I did my internship from a CA firm based in Connaught Place, Delhi and was majorly involved in Taxation work.

Pursuing LLB

After completing CA, I was working with consulting firm working as an tax consultant. Reading case laws on tax laws, analyzing making critical tax positions was part of routine work profile.

From there, I got interest to pursue LLB. Once I took the decision to pursue LLB, there was no backing out. I had searched for universities and decided to pursue LLB only from Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.

I completed my law in year 2019 from the Delhi university.

Becoming an Indirect Tax Author..!

Indirect tax law was always of interest to me even when I was pursuing CA course. I had decided that I would be making my career into Indirect Taxes.

GST law came as an opportunity for me to excel by putting hard work smartly. Since we are being told by our seniors that writing helps to grasp concept and to retain it for long, I started with making notes section by section.

As and when this was completed, I thought of getting it published. Since notes as such can’t be published and to abide by the standard practice of publication industry, I started making changes as per the requirement of publisher and finally my first book was published on GST laws.

Advice to young professionals who wants to pursue their career as an Advocate

In CA curriculum, we are taught tax and other economic laws. CA curriculum gives knowledge of finance coupled along with audit & commercial laws.

CA’s are the first point of contact / SPOC for all the tax related matters of any organization. Considering all these factors,

CA’s who have zeal to interpret & excel, inquisitive to economic and commercial laws, writing skills have ample opportunity in Advocacy profession.

CA’s already have technical expertise. This technical knowledge is very useful in advocacy profession which alongside requires knowledge of constitutional laws, civil procedural laws, etc.

Many CA have excelled and are now being designated as Senior Advocates, have served as Justice in the Hon’ble Supreme Court, Sitting judges in High Courts. CA’s currently can represent before tax tribunals, NCLT, etc. and the once practicing tax & company laws, have the knowledge of arguments, drafting.

However for appearance before High Court and Supreme Court, membership of bar council as an Advocate is necessary.

In case you need further guidance on pursuing your journey as an advocate, and wants to get in touch with Shivashish, he is there to help. You can book a mentoring session with him at https://www.acementorclub.com/bookings-checkout/session-with-ca-shivashish-karnani