Kozhikode: Prominent legal expert Prof. Shamnad Basheer was found dead on Thursday near Bababundangiri in Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka. He was 43.
Shamnad was incommunicado for last few days after he left for Bababundangiri on July 28.
Karnataka police, who found his dead body in a car, denied any foul-play behind the death.
Dead body of the deceased will be brought to Kerala after a post-mortem on Friday.
Shamnad Basheer drew attention after his legal battle against Swiss pharma company Novartis over a patent for cancer drug.
He founded Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA), which empowered students from unpriviliged backgrounds to pursue a career in law. He also founded SpicyIP, a blog on intellectual property (IP) and innovation laws and policy.
A graduate from National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, he finished Masters from the University of Oxford and completed his MPhil with distinction.
Since 2008, he was working as the Ministry of Human Resource Development Chaired Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He was also a visiting professor for George Washington University Law School and a research associate at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Center (OIPCR).