Scientific Committee 2025
Rajat Bansal
Rajat Bansal is a retired IRS officer from 1987 batch and served as the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (International Taxation) based at Delhi. He has worked in the CBDT as well as in the field formations in various capacities. In CBDT, he worked as Joint Secretary (FT&TR), CBDT and as India’s Competent Authority for treaty negotiations, MAP/APA and exchange of information. He was amongst the first Transfer Pricing Officers in India and set up the TP office at Delhi in 2003 besides making the first TP adjustments in India.
As Indian Competent Authority for treaty negotiations, he handled several treaty negotiations and is also accredited with amendments to tax treaties with Mauritius and Singapore. As Competent Authority, he handled MAP and BAPA negotiations with Japan, Australia, China, Singapore, Korea, etc. for six years. He was India’s Single Point of Contact for Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty related changes due to BEPS (MLI), Global Forum for Tax Transparency and Exchange of Information, Forum for Harmful Tax Practices, CATA, CIAT, BRICS etc.
He was a Member of the UN Tax Committee on Cooperation in International Tax Matters in Expert/Personal capacity from 2017-21, where he contributed to UN Model updating, UN Transfer Pricing Handbook revision and UN Dispute Resolution Handbook. His proposal on taxation of Digital Economies resulted in UN Tax Committee deciding to insert a new Article 12B in UN Model Tax Convention 2021. He was also the Head of Working Group which updated the India Chapter of UN TP Manual in 2017 and 2021.
Parul Jain
Parul Jain leads the International Tax and Investment Funds Practices at Nishith Desai Associates, a research and strategy based international law firm. She focuses on international taxation, cross-border transactions and fund formation practice areas including cross-border investments and group reorganization strategies, M&A transactions and venture capital/private equity funding structures. Parul is particularly adept in advising on cross-border issues arising from investments in India. She has assisted promoter groups in re-organizing their business structures. She has also worked with technology companies in advising them on matters involving digital taxation. She was the India Branch co-reporter for the subject “Taxation and Fundamental Rights: Taxpayers’ Procedural Rights in a Globalised World” for the IFA 2015 Basel Congress. She was also the Secretary to the panel on “Indirect Transfer of Assets” for the IFA 2014 Mumbai Congress and to the panel on “Tax Treaty Override” for the IFA 2019 London Congress. Parul has been acknowledged by ITR World Tax as a ‘Highly Regarded Tax Practitioner’ and ‘Women in Tax Leader’ for the year 2024, as well as consecutively for several years. Additionally, she has been included in The Legal500 and Chambers & Partners international directories as a recommended lawyer for tax practice in India for the year 2025.
Dr. Ashrita Prasad Kotha
Dr. Ashrita Prasad Kotha is an Assistant Professor (Department of Revenue Chair) at National Law School of India University, Bangalore where she teaches Taxation Law. She holds the BCL degree from University of Oxford and a Phd in International Business Taxation from Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her doctoral thesis was titled ‘Earmarked Taxes: A Tax Treaty and EU Law Analysis’. Ashrita has published in several journals and has received scholarships for research stays at the Max Planck Institute of Tax Law and Public Finance and University of New South Wales (Abe Greenbaum Research Fellowship). Her co-authored report on Cesses and Surcharges was submitted to the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
Sudarshan Rangan
Sudarshan is currently UNDP’s public finance specialist for Asia & the Pacific region under the Sustainable Finance Hub. The initiative aims to align public finance policies including tax, debt, expenditure etc., with the SDGs and also strengthen domestic revenue mobilization to achieve the SDGs. As part of his role in the UNDP, he also manages the Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) programme in the region. TIWB is a joint UNDP-OECD initiative rendering capacity development initiatives on transfer pricing, international tax, criminal tax investigations and other frontier issues in taxation. On the professional front, he is a qualified legal attorney, a commercial mediator and chartered accountant from India. He has a master’s in international Tax Law from the Vienna University of Economics & Business (WU) as a FIT Scholar. Before his foray into the development sector, he was a legal attorney focusing on international economic laws. His major focus areas are on International Economic Laws viz., International Tax, Trade & Investments Laws. He has appeared for the state on taxation matters as well as on investment arbitration disputes. Further, as also contributed technically to trade negotiations towards free trade agreements and also as an expert witness. He is a regular visiting faculty on international economic laws for corporates, and academic institutions.
Kriti Chawla
Kriti is a Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary and LL.M. in International Tax Law from King’s College London. Having over a decade of professional experience with the Big4 consulting firms and Tier 1 tax law firms, she also has many authorships, the latest being book on ‘Principles of Taxation Law’ co-authored with Dr. Girish Ahuja. An Associate Professor at JGLS, she is also the Director of the Centre for Comparative and International Taxation (CCIT), the tax research centre of JGLS. Kriti is serving her fourth term as an expert on the Committee on International Taxation of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Kriti’s passion for international tax is evident through her prolific writing and research contributions. Her research on international tax and transfer pricing have garnered acclaim, earning publication in various prestigious tax publications and forums. Kriti is also recognized for her active participation as a speaker at tax events and global seminars.
Kush Vatsaraj
Kush Vatsaraj qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2015 and has worked at M/s T P Ostwal & Associates LLP as part of the international tax practice. In 2021 he joined M/s Vatsaraj & Co, being the 4th generation member from the founding family of the audit & tax practice founded in 1934. He specialises in providing advisory & consultancy on international taxation, inbound & outbound investments, cross-border & domestic structuring and restructuring transactions, Indian foreign exchange control laws, and business valuations. He also advises Indian HNIs and business families on family trusts & estate planning. He is on the FIT Scientific Committee and Secretary of IFA-India’s WRC and the India Representative at IFA’s APAC Committee. He writes extensively on a wide range of topics and has authored/ co-authored several research papers, articles and chapters for Indian and international professional journals, news publications, and business magazines. He also speaks at various conferences organized by both India and international professional associations.