Insolvency Lawyer
International Fellow, American College of Bankruptcy
Former President, INSOL International
Sumant Batra is an insolvency lawyer of global eminence with three decades of experience in the areas of insolvency, bankruptcy and related laws. His work and contribution ranges from policy making to drafting of legislation and regulations, designing best practises to their disseminating, advising and representing clients to assisting the courts in development of jurisprudence, sharing knowledge through writing and speaking at conferences to curating and delivering capacity building programmes for stakeholders.
He is the only Indian to have been conferred the honour and election as an International Fellow by the American College of Bankruptcy. He developed an inclination towards policy work while observing his father develop the Parliamentary standing committee system in India during his long stint in the Lok Sabha Secretariat. His policy experience comes from being on multiple expert committees and working groups constituted by the Government of India, and a stintas a senior consultant with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Asian Development Bank and other developmental institutions.
Sumant holds the distinction of being the youngest and the first President of INSOL International from Asia. During his term of ten years on the Board of INSOL International, he was extensively involved in global bench marking and standard setting in the field of insolvency.
His book, Corporate Insolvency – Law & Practice is considered, the foremost scholarly work on fundamental principles and approaches to the insolvency system. He has co-authored Making of New India – transformation Under Modi Government, Co-edited by Dr. Bibek Debroy, Anirban Ganguly and Kishore Desai.
Sumant is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Singapore based Asia Business Law Institute. He is the founder of SIPI – an independent national think tank for the insolvency industry.
For 30 years, he led the leading insolvency law firm, Kesar Dass B. & Associates, which he founded at the age of 28. As an insolvency lawyer, he has represented/advised one or more clients in nearly all large cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
Sumant is the founder and architect of a number of innovative creative projects to promote Indian heritage, culture, art and literature. He is the Managing Trustee of Indian Cinema Heritage oundation, a public charitable trust set up. The Foundation has set up Cinemaazi Research Centre to research, document, digitize and archive the rich history and heritage of Indian cinema. The Foundation holds the largest collection of Indian cinema memorabilia; (ii) vintage radios; (iii) vintage typewriters; and (iv) vintage calendar art of India. He is the founder and curator of many prestigious projects including, – Kumaon Literary Festival, the first traveling literary festival of the country; Prof. S. P. Passi Rural Library with branches in Divar, Goa and a mobile library in Tehsil Dhari, Uttarakhand; Te Aroha, a boutique museum hotel; and Fellows of Nature, a short story writing project.
He is the author of the bestselling coffee table book – The Indians. The Foreword was written by Ms. Cherie Blair. The book was released by Dr. Karan Singh. He has co-authored the biography of late actor Sanjeev Kumar – An Actor’s Actor – The Authorised Biography of Sanjeev Kumar.