New Delhi: Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi has written to the government saying he is not interested in continuing as the top law officer. Senior lawyer Harish Salve, who represented India at the International Court of Justice in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, is being tipped to succeed Mr Rohatgi.
The AG, who is on a holiday in London, said he has had fantastic relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad during his three years as AG, but would now like to return to his private practice.
Mr Rohatgi told a television channel, “Even if I return to private practice, my services will be available to the NDA government, BJP and its leaders as and when needed.”
Mr Rohatgi was appointed AG for three years in 2014. His three-year term was ending on June 19, but the Centre last week decided to allow him to continue.
The appointments committee of the Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister, had extended the tenure of several law officers, until further orders.
Along with Mr Rohatgi, additional solicitor generals Pinky Anand, Maninder Singh, P.S. Patwalia, Tushar Mehta and P.S. Narsimha were also given extensions.
Mr Rohatgi’s extension came despite criticism from certain quarters about his handling of some sensitive cases. The attorney general was blamed for embarrassing the government in the collegium system issue and the SC’s scrapping of the National Judicial Appointments Commission was seen as a major blow. The embarrassment that the dissolution of Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand state Assemblies caused in the SC also did not go down well with the Modi government. “My only regret as AG was the 2015 apex court judgment striking down National Judicial Appointments Commission law. I worked for five years as law officer under the Vajpayee government and now three years under the Modi government. I want to return to my private practice. I have a good relationship with the government… That’s why I wrote to the government not to extend my term,” he told a TV channel. The AG’s juniors told this correspondent that Mr Rohatgi had written to the government in the last week of May expressing his desire not to continue as AG, shortly after arguing for the Centre in the triple talaq case.
