Tushar Mehta appointed the Solicitor General of India, Modi government’s top legal expert
The government appointed Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta as the new Solicitor General of India and will remain in office till June 2020. The post was lying vacant since October 2017 after the resignation of the former Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar. The appointment comes months ahead of the general elections in 2019.
The appointment was approved by the Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet. Mr Mehta inherited most of former solicitor general Ranjit Kumar’s high-profile cases and was a front runner for the post. The delay of almost a year in the appointment suggests lack of consensus on his name. An insider reported, “There were some issues but finally the government approved his name for the post.”
Senior Advocate Mehta was appointed to the office of Additional Solicitor General after the Narendra Modi led NDA government assumed power at centre in June 2014. Earlier this year, the tenure of Mr Mehta as Additional Solicitor General was extended till June 2020 by the centre.
Senior advocate Tushar Mehta was appointed the Solicitor General of India, the second-highest ranking law officer.https://t.co/YdplMPiTIh
— BloombergQuint (@BloombergQuint) October 11, 2018
Tushar Mehta represented the Gujarat government as its Additional Advocate general when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister in 2008. He represented the government in many crucial cases. He made his presence counted in most of the prominent cases from Gujarat at the time. Mehta is also known to be close to BJP president Amit Shah. He appeared in the high profile Sohrabbuddin case which also named Amit Shah as one of the accused. He was later discharged.
As an Additional Solicitor General, he defended the Centre in many politically sensitive and constitutionally significant cases. He was named special public prosecutor for 2G spectrum scam case. Other cases include the Aircel-Maxis scam, case against former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti, Hadiya case and the case challenging Section 66A of the Information Technology Act. He is considered to be the go to legal expert of the government.
Mr Mehta is the counsel of the Jammu and Kashmir Government in the Article 35A case.
He is also representing the UP government in the Ayodhya land dispute case pending before the Supreme Court.
