Principal
Name, designation, years in the department, the commissionerates served, and the areas carried into practice. To be added before launch.
The firm
A departmental practice, run from the other side of the table.
VR1 Associates advises on Customs, GST, SEZ and foreign trade from Gandhinagar. The people who lead it spent more than thirty five years administering these laws before they started advising on them.
Why the firm exists
Most of the demands that reach the Tribunal did not have to exist. Somebody asked a question, the answer took too long or arrived without the documents, and a routine query became a notice, then an order, then a five year appeal over the same set of facts.
We set the practice up around that observation. The service is not litigation support with advisory attached. It is advisory, with litigation support for the matters that get past it. The measure of a good year here is how few files reached the appellate stage, not how many.
Being at Gandhinagar is deliberate. The zones, the port commissionerates, the regional foreign trade authority, the Tribunal bench and the High Court are all in the same state, and a great deal of this work is done faster in person than on paper.
What we are
A regulatory and foreign trade consultancy. We advise, we analyse, we prepare submissions, and we assist in presenting and appealing a matter.
What we are not
We are not a firm of advocates and we are not a firm of chartered accountants. We do not appear as counsel, and we do not carry out statutory audit, tax audit or any certification reserved to a chartered accountant. Where a matter needs either, we say so and work alongside them.
The people
Profiles are added here before launch.
The firm would rather leave this section honestly empty than fill it with invented credentials. The details below come from VR1 and are published once confirmed.
Associate
Name, background and practice focus. To be added before launch.
Associate
Name, background and practice focus. To be added before launch.
How we hold ourselves
Four positions we do not move on.
We do not promise outcomes
Nobody can, and a consultant who does is telling you something about themselves. What we will give you is an honest read on the strength of a position and what it will cost to run it.
We do not trade on access
Thirty five years in the department buys judgement about process, not influence over decisions. Anyone offering the second thing is offering something that will hurt you.
We say when you do not need us
A large share of first calls end with a short answer and no engagement. That is the practice working correctly.
We write everything down
A position you cannot produce three years later is a position you did not take. Every view we give you comes in writing, with the provision behind it.
Bring it to us while it is still a question.
A first conversation costs you nothing but the hour, and it is where we tell you honestly whether the matter needs us at all.