Days before senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi takes over as Attorney General (AG), the Union law ministry has issued directions making it mandatory for its department concerned to place a list of all the cases first before the AG to let the top law officer select matters where he feels his appearance is necessary.
It is only after the AG makes a decision regarding his appearance in select cases that the list will be placed before solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta, who can then mark matters to himself or to other law officers and government counsel.
“In respect of cases before the Supreme Court, the list of cases on a daily basis will first be placed before the learned Attorney General for India for the purpose of his selecting the matters in which he considers his appearance to be necessary. The list of cases will thereafter be placed before the learned Solicitor General of India...” stated the office memorandum, issued by the department of legal affairs on September 13.
The memorandum added that after the AG picks up the cases for himself, the SG can mark other cases to himself, additional solicitors general (ASGs), and government lawyers, who can either appear alone or with the AG or the SG. The ministry directed all central agency section (CAS) officials to ensure strict compliance of the procedure being laid down.
With Rohatgi set to take the helm on October 1, the office memorandum, for the first time, has put in black and white the directive requiring CAS, which conducts the cases on behalf of the central government in the Supreme Court, to compulsorily place the list of cases first before the AG.
At present, CAS prepares the list of cases which are to come up before different benches in the Supreme Court a day later, and usually places it before SG’s office for allocation of work. The present AG, KK Venugopal, 91, has mostly refrained from taking calls on administrative matters relating to distribution of cases.
According to people aware of the matter, the government order has formalised that the AG must get to choose for himself the cases that he considers important and where he feels he should represent the Centre before the apex court.
Rohatgi, 67, is set to return as India’s Attorney General from October 1. This will be Rohatgi’s second stint as the top law officer of the country. The BJP-led NDA government chose him as AG soon after it came to power in 2014. He remained in office till 2017 before senior lawyer Venugopal took over. Venugopal’s third extension as AG ends on September 30.
After his tenure as AG, Rohatgi returned to private practice, representing state governments, politicians, industrialists, big business houses, and individuals fighting for liberty.
The son of a former Delhi high court judge, justice A B Rohatgi, he was designated senior counsel in 1993 and was later appointed as an ASG in 1999. His first term at the Centre’s law office ended with the change of government in May 2004.
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