The ICICI Professorial Chair on Business Laws was established at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, with the support of ICICI, a leading financial institution, to promote excellence in the study, teaching and research of business law.

The Chair seeks to advance scholarship and academic engagement in business law, with a focus on contemporary legal and regulatory issues affecting business and economic activity. Its activities include:

• Facilitating high-quality teaching workshops and promoting scholarship i business and corporate law;
• Undertaking and supporting fundamental and applied research;
• Fostering interdisciplinary and policy-oriented research and dialogue; and
• Facilitating engagement among academics, practitioners, regulators and other stakeholders

Team

Chair Professor (In-charge) (2025-2027): Ms Varsha Aithala
Affiliated Faculty (2025-2027): Dr Garima Gupta

Policy Interventions

Review of the Corporate Laws (Amendment) Bill 2026

NLSIU faculty members, Mr Rahul Singh and Dr Garima Gupta, have closely reviewed and engaged extensively with the process of strengthening the newly proposed Corporate Laws (Amendment) Bill 2026. At the request of the Joint Parliamentary Committee constituted to examine the 2026 Bill, Prof Singh and Dr Gupta submitted detailed written comments and appeared in-person before the Committee on 10 July 2026 to participate in the stakeholder consultation.

The recommendations put forward by the NLSIU team include:

(i) removing references to the IBC from Sections 230(1) and 230(6); examining the rationale behind the requirement of a three-year cooling-off period for the auditors u/s 144;

(ii) revisiting the definition of “small companies” and the exclusion of holding and subsidiary companies therefrom;

(iii) introducing a valuation-fairness check under proposed section 43A;

(iv) incorporating guiding criteria under clause 43

(d) to avoid excessive delegation of legislative function; and (v) providing guiding criteria for reducing the directorship cap under clause 55.

Several recommendations made by the NLSIU team are reflected in the Committee’s report. For instance, Dr Garima Gupta’s concern that cash-settled and equity-settled instruments were being treated alike was echoed in the Committee’s broader direction that the matter be clarified through comprehensive rules. Similarly, the Committee accepted Dr Gupta’s recommendations to a) narrow the provision on the CSR exemption power (Section 135); b) put in place a transitional safeguard to prevent directors facing abrupt vacation of office (Section 165); and c) address concern about diluted minority protection in instances of fast-track mergers, to which the Committee responded by recommending a statutory exit right for dissenting shareholders (Section 233).

For details, please refer to the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee.

Research Initiatives

• Garima Gupta co-authored “The Dollar Goes In and the Rupee Comes Out: Enforcement Blind Spot in India’s IFSC”, published with NLSBLR Blog, (September 09, 2026).
• Garima Gupta was a part of the research team which co-authored the White Paper titled “Digital Lending Ecosystem: A Case for Inclusion of NBFCs in Credit Line on UPI”. The research study was undertaken by NLSIU through its Chair on Consumer Law and Practice, with the Technology Services Industry Association being the sponsor and was published in April, 2026.
• Varsha Aithala was part of the research study for NLSIU along with the FinTech Practice Group and the Banking & Finance Practice Group of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. on a white paper titled “Designing a Framework for Asset Tokenisation in India” in December 2025. The paper examined the emerging landscape of asset tokenisation and its implications for India’s financial and regulatory system.
• Varsha Aithala co-authored a book chapter “The Lengthening Shadow of the Legal Tech Market on the Supreme Court of India” in Digitalising Courts in Asia: Exploring the Mechanics of Judicial Transformations (Edinburgh University Press, July 22, 2025).
• Garima Gupta co-authored “Investor Protection Reimagined: Ombudspersons, Charters, and the Limits of Redress”, published with The NLS Blog, (April 10, 2026).
• Garima Gupta co-authored “Grounded flights, grounded rights: IndiGo and a dual regulatory scrutiny”, Deccan Herald (opinion) (Jan 16, 2026).
• Rahul Singh, “Imperfect Alternatives: Economic Evidence in Indian Regulatory Landscape”, NLS Business Law Review 2024.

Guest Lecture/ Workshop

The Chair organised an interactive session with 3rd to 5th year students of the BA LLB (Hons), final year students of the LLB (Hons), and students of the LLM programmes on the topic “Importance of Legal Due Diligence”, conducted by Mr Neeraj Vyas (NLS BA LLB 2014), Partner at Saga Legal, Bangalore, on November 12, 2025.