Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar appointed new Solicitor General; Notifications for six ASGs also released

The BJP-led NDA government has appointed Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar as the new Solicitor General of India. Kumar replaces Mohan Parasaran, who resigned few days back..Kumar confirmed that he has received the notification from the Law Ministry and he will be taking charge today. He said, “I will now prosecute and defend on behalf of the government in the Supreme Court”..Kumar, an expert on Constitution laws has been counsel for the Gujarat government and amicus curiae in several cases in the Supreme Court. He had represented Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case pending in a Bangalore court..The UPA-II saw three Solicitor Generals in a term of five years. Senior Advocates Gopal Subramanium and Rohinton Nariman had resigned mid-way due to differences with the law ministry after which Mohan Parasaran was appointed..Kumar will be joined by a team of six Additional Solicitor Generals, including L Nageshwar Rao, Maninder Singh, Neeraj Kishan Kaul, PS Narasimha, PS Patwalia and Tushar Mehta..Nageshwar Rao, who was ASG in the UPA–II, will continue as ASG in the BJP-led NDA government..Maninder Singh, who inititally worked in the chambers of BJP leader, Arun Jaitley, was designated a Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in 2009. He was a topper in the AoR exam in 1991. Singh was the central government standing counsel in the Vajpayee government from 1998 to 2004. He is the husband of IP lawyer and Senior Advocate, Pratibha Singh..A graduate of Delhi University, Neeraj Kishan Kaul completed his Masters in Law from Cambridge University, and was only 38 years old when he was designated a Senior Advocate by the Delhi High Court. In 2009, he was elevated as a judge of the Delhi High Court, a post he occupied for four months before resigning..Senior Advocate, PS Narasimha has been in the profession for more than two decades, and is regarded as an expert in environmental jurisprudence. He served as the amicus for the Green Bench of the Supreme Court for two years..The fifth individual on the list, PS Patwalia was elevated as a judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court. Like Kaul, he too resigned from the post in less than nine months after taking oath, choosing to practice at the Supreme Court. He was the youngest High Court Judge in the country and is the son of former Supreme Court judge, Kuldip Singh..Tushar Mehta is the Additional Advocate General of Gujarat..The other lawyers who are being considered for the post of ASG include Senior Advocates Aman Lekhi, Sanjay Jain, Pinky Anand and Indu Malhotra..Meanwhile, the appointment of Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi as Attorney General remains uncertain after Senior Advocate Ram Jethmalani wrote a strongly worded letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing Rohatgi’s appointment.