The South Indian Granulite Terrane is traversed by several crustal scale shear zones, however the tectonic significance of the shear zones are poorly understood. The tectonic relevance of the Bavali Shear Zone (BSZ) ‒ in the WNW extremity of the Moyar Shear Zone ‒ at the interface between the Paleoarchean to Neoarchean Western Dharwar Craton (WDC) in the north and the late Neoarchean Nilgiri block in the south is poorly constrained. The most conspicuous feature in the WDC is a set of N-striking gently-plunging upright folds and N-striking dextral shear zones (deformation D4). These D4 structures are superposed on a shallowly-dipping D3 recumbent folds and gently-dipping mylonite fabrics in a suite of anatectic gneisses, lower-grade supracrustal rocks and foliated granitoids. In regional scale, the D3 fold axes curve into the WNW-striking BSZ (D5 deformation), a steep-dipping transpressional shear zone with dextral kinematics. The BSZ is characterized by steeply-plunging stretching lineations sub-parallel to the hinges of reclined folds on the pre-shearing fabrics in the lithologies of the adjacent cratons. Syn-D5 charnockite veins suggest the BSZ formed at T > 850 °C. Existing U–Pb (zircon) dates and monazite chemical dates (this study), indicate that the deformation-metamorphism-magmatism in the WDC and the Nilgiri block occurred between 3400 and 2500 Ma; by contrast the high-T D5 oblique crustal shortening in the BSZ contemporaneous with multiple felsic emplacements was active between 830 and 720 Ma. The BSZ collision orogeny possibly preceded the eventual integration of the Greater India landmass with the Gondwanaland during the early-Palaeozoic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]