Mr. S.K. Kandhari (born 15 August 1935) is one of the leading chartered accountants of the country with a practice of more than fifty years. He has represented most historical Income Tax cases of Royal families of India such as Her Highness Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, HEH Nizam of Hyderabad, Indian Hotels, Air India, Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India and Airport Authority of India. He has also represented His Highness Dr. Karan Singh of Kashmir in the high value Toshakhana case which was worth more than Rs 2000 Cr.
Mr Kandhari has been a member of the board of Indian hotels (Taj Group of hotels) and he was also the chairman of the audit committee of Indian hotels. He also had the privilege of working with the distinguished lawyer Mr. Nani Palkiwala. He was amongst the top nine highest paid independent directors in India (source: Economic Times, New Delhi, Monday, 9 November 2009). He was also the member of Asian business network, House of Commons, London. He is a treasure of wisdom and eternal source of guidance and motivation.
Mr Kandhari had the privilege of being Counsel General of Grenada for nearly two decades. He has also represented various trusts in India and abroad. He was also instrumental in 80HHD, HUF cases and company law matters. Among his numerous historical wins are several Income Tax cases. He was successful in securing tax relief of Rs.144 crores for Air India in Income Tax appeals. He represented Hotel Federation of India before Income Tax Appellate Tribunal against the inclusion of ‘luxury tax’ as part of chargeable expenditure and thus succeeded in getting relief of Rs.400 crores to the Hotel Industry as a whole. He was also an arbitrator for Indian Hotels Pvt Ltd (Taj Group of Hotels) along with Former Chief Justice of India Mr. Y. K. Sabharwal, for resolving the dispute between the Tata’s Indian Hotels Company (IHC) and Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which finally concluded in favour of Taj Group of Hotels. He was also one of the Settlers of the biggest Trust which was established by Lord Paul Hamlyn in India. Lord Paul Hamlyn’s publishing house, Reed International, is well known in the UK, Australia and the US. In 1971, he set up the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, whose funds were to go to arts and disabled and deprived children with an initial endowment of 50 million pounds. The Trust in India contributed to the Jaipur Foot and other Charitable Trusts.