SENIOR ADVOCATE Mukul Rohatgi, whose persuasive skills have turned around many cases for his government and private clients, is likely to return as the country’s next Attorney General (AG).
Sources familiar with the matter said the government, which was scouting for names to succeed the current AG, K K Venugopal, has zeroed in on Rohatgi for the constitutional office.
Venugopal, who is on his third extension, had indicated to the government that he did not want to remain in office after September 30 when the term comes to an end, the sources said.
Venugopal, 91, succeeded Rohatgi as the 15th AG for India in July 2017 for three years. When his tenure ended in 2020, Venugopal requested that he be relieved of his post, citing his advancing age. However, the government requested him to continue and kept extending his tenure.
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When appointed, it will be Rohatgi’s second term as the AG. His first tenure was from June 2014 to June 2017.
Son of former Delhi High Court Judge Justice Awadh Behari Rohatgi, Mukul Rohatgi was appointed Additional Solicitor General in 1999 when late A B Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. He subsequently represented the Gujarat government in the 2002 riots cases in the Supreme Court and was appointed AG when Narendra Modi government assumed office in 2014.
As AG, Rohatgi defended, albeit unsuccessfully, the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act and the 99th Constitution Amendment, which provided for the establishment of the National Judicial Commission to appoint judges of the apex court and high courts.
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In the Aadhaar case on use of biometric data, Rohatgi as AG set off a furore with his stand that an individual does not have absolute right over his or her body.
After he was succeeded by Venugopal as AG, Rohatgi appeared for hotelier Keshav Suri in the apex court in 2018 challenging the constitutionality of Article 377 which criminalised same-sex offences. Citing the example of Shikhandi of Mahabharata and the concept of Ardhanareeswara, he argued that sexual orientation is natural and innate to a person’s identity.
He was also appointed Special Prosecutor in the case of the death of Judge B H Loya before the apex court. The SC subsequently dismissed the petitions seeking probe into the death. He also unsuccessfully defended the Maharashtra law introducing quota in jobs and admissions for Maratha community.
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The senior advocate’s client list also included Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who faced allegations of illegal mining allotments; NDTV promoters Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, in a case involving the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI); and Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami following his arrest by Maharashtra Police.
He appeared for the SC-constituted SIT opposing the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of Congress MP Ahsan Jafri who was killed during the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
Recently, he represented the Uttar Pradesh government to oppose a petition challenging the denial of sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a 2007 case for allegedly delivering an inflammatory speech.
In 2018, he was also appointed as “eminent jurist” member in the Lokpal Selection Committee chaired by the Prime Minister.
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