Senior advocate KK Venugopal to succeed Mukul Rohatgi as attorney general
President Pranab Mukherjee has approved his appointment.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday approved the appointment of senior advocate KK Venugopal as the next attorney general of India, PTI reported. Incumbent Mukul Rohatgi had declined an offer to extend his term.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government will notify his appointment in a day or two, CNN-News18 reported.
Venugopal had served as the additional solicitor general in former Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s government. The 86-year-old was appointed the amicus curiae in the 2G spectrum case and had also represented BJP leader LK Advani in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
Rohatgi had said he wanted to return to his practice. “I have worked for five years as the law officer in [former Prime Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayee’s government and now three years under the Modi government,” Rohatgi had said. “I have a good relationship with the government...that is why I wrote to the government to not extend my term.”
The Department of Personnel and Training had extended the tenure of seven law officers, including Rohatgi, who was appointed for a three-year term in June 2014 by the Modi government. In 1999, he was assigned the post of the additional solicitor general by the Vajpayee government.
Rohatgi, who has served as the 14th attorney general of India, represented the Gujarat government in the Supreme Court in the 2002 Gujarat riots case. He is the son of former Delhi High Court judge Justice Awadh Behari Rohatgi.