Mukul Rohatgi, a renowned attorney (lawyer) known for his direct arguments and eloquent submissions, is scheduled to resume his duties as India’s Attorney General on October 1st.
Rohatgi will be serving as the nation’s top law enforcement official for a second time. Soon after the NDA administration took office in 2014, it appointed him AG. He served as president until 2017, at which point he stopped. He will be serving as the nation’s top law enforcement official for a second time.Â
Soon after the NDA administration took office in 2014, it appointed him Attorney General. He served until 2017, at which point veteran attorney KK Venugopal took over and was succeeded by veteran lawyer KK Venugopal.
On September 30, Venugopal’s third extension as the AG came to an end. Rohatgi, who is 67 years old and has been a senior advocate since 1993 and an assistant Solicitor General since 1999, is the son of a former Delhi High Court judge. With the change of the administration in May 2004, his first term at the Centre’s law firm came to an end. Rohatgi defended the government in the 2002 Gujarat riots and fake encounter case before the Supreme Court while serving as the ASG in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration.
When a challenge against the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) was underway in the Supreme Court, as well as the high courts of Delhi and Bombay, Rohatgi consented to become the Modi government’s first attorney general.
While Rohatgi was unable to successfully defend the statute, he unapologetically stirred up the court with his numerous criticisms of the collegium method for selecting judges in 2015 as the case’s arguments progressed. He even explained to the five sitting judges that the collegium operated under the “You scratch my back, I will scratch yours” tenet. Despite concerns raised by unfavourable Intelligence Bureau findings and harsh criticism from its own judges, Rohatgi nevertheless submitted a 10-page list of names that the collegium had demanded.
The next significant case Rohatgi took on for the Centre was the Aadhaar issue, when the senior lawyer once more made headlines by claiming that a person does not have complete control over their body and that the Constitution does not recognise a right to privacy. His one statement fundamentally altered the trajectory of the case, necessitating the establishment of a nine-judge bench to determine the scope of privacy rights. The issue was finally resolved in August 2017 after more than 700 days had passed since Rohatgi’s startling declaration, when the constitution court ruled unanimously that privacy is a basic right in India. However, it was Rohatgi’s successor KK Venugopal who confronted the intimidating row of nine judges when the case was eventually heard in the top court.
Some of Rohatgi’s greatest victories as attorney general included leading the Centre’s legal defence of the criminal defamation law, arguing against the prosecution of security forces personnel for alleged extrajudicial killings in Manipur, and opposing the playing of the national anthem before movies in theatres.
Rohatgi has defended everyone in the last five years, including state governments, lawmakers, industrialists, large corporations, and citizens struggling for freedom.
Rohatgi was appointed by the Maharashtra government as the special prosecutor in the judge BH Loya death case in 2018, and he was successful in getting the state government off the hook. He also defended the Maratha quota law on behalf of the Maharashtra government, which was ultimately found to be unconstitutional. In recent years, he has also made appearances for the governments of Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
Rohatgi attended on behalf of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a defendant in the murder of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, to make the case for Rajoan’s pardon. In situations involving hate speech and hurting religious sensibilities, he successfully defended journalists Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai, Congressman Shashi Tharoor, comic book creator Rachita Taneja, and Amazon Prime (India) creative chief Aparna Purohit.
Rohatgi has frequently represented Facebook and WhatsApp before the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court, where numerous challenges to the social media giants’ varied rules are still unresolved.
Rohatgi has recently advocated on behalf of the Future Group in the Amazon Vs. Future saga, real estate moguls Sushil and Gopal Ansal, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, former Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa, Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia, former Delhi Police commissioner Rakesh Asthana, former Mumbai police commissioners Parambir Singh and Sanjay Pandey In a different well-known case, Rohatgi was successful in getting Bollywood celebrity Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan released on bail following a drugs search.
The senior lawyer is an avid traveller and the proud owner of a fleet of luxury vehicles. He is an expert on art, and his private collection includes works by numerous well-known artists. Along with light thrillers by writers like Jeffrey Archer, Rohatgi likes reading historical fiction.
