Operating at the intersection of infrastructure development, commercial real estate, and regulatory frameworks, he serves as an Arbitrator, Co-Arbitrator, and Technical Expert on domestic and commercial panels.
With a foundational background as a Civil Engineer, Public Accountant and a former Revenue Officer, Manoj provides tribunals with the independent capability to synthesize critical path delay metrics and decode complex statutory tax escalations simultaneously. His adjudicatory approach prioritizes commercial finality, strict adherence to statutory timelines, and the structural integrity of arbitral awards.
Core Adjudicatory Competencies
Infrastructure & Construction Arbitration: Independent evaluation of concurrent delay claims, critical path methodology (CPM) schedules, and quantum analysis in heavy infrastructure, EPC, and government works contracts.
Commercial & Regulatory Overlaps: Resolution of commercial disputes complicated by state enforcement actions, including the jurisdictional overlap of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) attachments.
Tax & Cost Escalation Claims: Forensic quantification of unliquidated damages, "Change in Law" cost escalations, and GST 2.0 works contract disputes, ensuring awards do not trigger cascading, unintended tax liabilities.
Section 29A Velocity: By internalizing technical and financial evaluations, he mitigates the tribunal’s reliance on competing external quantum experts, ensuring the swift delivery of awards within statutory deadlines.
Professional Credentials & Trust Signals
Arbitral Empanelment: Panel Arbitrator, Indian Institute of Arbitration & Mediation (IIAM).
Engineering Authority: B.Tech (Hons.) in Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.
Financial & State Governance: Former Revenue Officer with an Executive Diploma in Financial Management.
Corporate Governance: Empanelled Independent Director, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (Databank Registration No. IDDB-NR-202404-058222).
Statutory Tax Authority: Registered GST Practitioner under the Ex-Government Officials Category (Registration No. 272400020108GPT).
Industry Affiliations: Member of INSOL India & INSOL International, International Fiscal Association, Society of Construction Law, The Chamber of Tax Consultants; GSTAT Bar Association
Tribunal Value Proposition
Modern commercial disputes rarely exist in a vacuum; they are increasingly entangled with statutory tax liabilities and highly technical engineering delays. Appointing an adjudicator with an exclusive legal background often requires heavy reliance on protracted external expert testimonies. Manoj Thakur bridges this gap. He brings unimpeachable technical fluency directly to the tribunal, protecting the efficiency of the proceedings, the commercial viability of the parties, and the enforceability of the final award.
Appointments accepted
Party-appointed expert Quantum, delay and disruption, valuation of works, and the Indian tax and customs treatment of claims and awards. Reports prepared to the standards set out below.
Tribunal-appointed expert Where the tribunal requires an independent technical or quantum assessment, including issues that span engineering and Indian fiscal treatment.
Sole arbitrator
Co-arbitrator and technical member of a tribunal Particularly where the tribunal requires engineering or quantum competence on the panel itself, and where the award will need to survive scrutiny on valuation and tax treatment at the enforcement stage.
Independent expert determination and neutral evaluation
Expert adviser to counsel Instructed behind Senior Advocates and law firms on quantum reconstruction, factual-record development and appellate strategy. In this capacity I do not appear as counsel of record; I work to and through instructing counsel.
Merits and quantum diligence for funders and boards Independent assessment of claim value, recoverability, and the tax and attachment exposure that determines what a claim is worth net.
Seats, institutions and forums
Arbitral seats: India-seat commercial and infrastructure arbitration, domestic ad hoc and institutional. Available for foreign-seat matters with an India nexus, where Indian tax, customs, regulatory or enforcement issues arise.
Institutional empanelment: Indian Institute of Arbitration and Mediation (IIAM) — empanelled arbitrator.
Appellate and adjudicatory forums in which I have worked: GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT), CESTAT, ITAT, NCLT, and High Court writ proceedings — instructed by or alongside Senior Advocates and law firms.
Governing framework for India-seat appointments: the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, as amended, including the disclosure obligations under Section 12(1) and the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Schedules. See the Disclosure and Independence Statement.
Sectors
Infrastructure and heavy engineering — steel plant construction and modernisation; water supply, treatment and process plant packages; ore processing; offshore fabrication and helideck structures for oil and gas platforms.
EPC and turnkey contracting — delay and disruption, variation and change-order valuation, prolongation and disruption cost, defects, termination accounts, and final account disputes.
Real estate and development — redevelopment deadlocks, joint development agreements, lessor and lessee disputes, and the GST treatment of leases and development rights.
Utility and network programmes — gas, electric and telecom network delivery; geospatial and asset data programmes; large multi-team programme delivery and change control.
Cross-border trade and customs — valuation, classification, drawback and examination disputes, and the customs and GST cost embedded in imported plant and equipment on infrastructure projects.
Insolvency interface — asset valuation and claim quantification in NCLT and IBC proceedings, including the treatment of revenue claims in resolution.
Methodology and standards
I prepare and deliver work to the following published standards. Where a tribunal or instructing party specifies a different framework, I adopt theirs.
Delay and disruption analysis Society of Construction Law, Delay and Disruption Protocol, 2nd edition (February 2017). Method of analysis is selected on the facts, the records available and the contractual mechanism — not by default — and the selection is stated and justified in the report.
Expert evidence in international arbitration Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Protocol for the Use of Party-Appointed Expert Witnesses in International Arbitration. Article 4 governs independence, duty and opinion; Article 6 governs experts' meetings, joint statements and the manner of testimony. I give the Article 4 declaration in every report: that the opinion is impartial, objective and unbiased, and has not been influenced by the pressures of the dispute resolution process or by any party.
Evidence and expert procedure IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration, 2020 revision — Article 5 on party-appointed experts, including the independence requirement at Article 5.2(c), and Articles 5.3 and 5.4 on expert meetings and narrowing of issues.
Concurrent evidence CIArb Guidelines for Witness Conferencing in International Arbitration (2019), where the tribunal directs witness conferencing.
Conflicts and disclosure IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration, 2024 edition (adopted 25 May 2024), read with the Fifth and Seventh Schedules to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for India-seat appointments. Full process set out in the Disclosure and Independence Statement.
Working principles
The expert's duty is to the tribunal, not to the appointing party. Where my analysis does not support the instructing party's case, I say so in writing, early, and in the report.
Every figure is traceable to a source document. Reports are delivered with a reconciliation schedule linking each computed number to the record.
Assumptions and instructions are stated separately from opinion, so the tribunal can see which conclusions move if an assumption fails.
Where the record does not support an opinion to the required standard, the report says that rather than filling the gap.
Fee basis
Time-based fees for analytical work. Charged hourly against a written scope, with an estimate at the outset and notification before any material variance. Rates on request; a written fee schedule is provided before engagement.
Day rate for hearing attendance and testimony. Charged for hearing days and reasonable travel; quoted at engagement.
Fixed fee for defined deliverables. Scoped products with a stated output and turnaround — pre-appellate vulnerability reviews, quantum reconstructions, independent second opinions on an existing expert report, and merits-and-quantum diligence for funders — are quoted as a fixed fee.
Retainer arrangements are available for ongoing dispute portfolios.
No contingency, success or conditional fees — in any capacity. This is not a commercial preference. A fee outcome linked to the result of the dispute is inconsistent with the independence required by Article 4 of the CIArb Protocol and Article 5.2(c) of the IBA Rules, and it is an obvious and effective line of cross-examination against any expert who accepts one. I will not accept an instruction on that basis, and I will decline an appointment where such a structure is proposed.
Third-party funded matters. I act in funded matters. The existence of funding and the identity of the funder are treated as disclosable — see the Disclosure and Independence Statement. My fee arrangement is with the instructing party or funder on a time or fixed-fee basis only, and is never linked to recovery.
Instructing
Preliminary conflict check takes one working day. Please provide the information listed in the Disclosure and Independence Statement.