Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi will be taking over as the fourteenth Attorney General (AG) of India from 1 October, after the current AG KK Venugopal vacates the post on 30 September, when his third extension ends.
The 67-year-old had previously served as the country's AG between June 2014 and June 2017, after the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government appointed him to the post soon after coming to power.
Ninety-one-year-old Venugopal recently told the Supreme Court that he would not be able to continue as AG after his third extension gets over on 30 September. In June, this year, his tenure was extended for a period of three years or "until further orders," Bar & Bench reported.
Livemint reported that Rohatgi agreed to be appointed for the post after he was requested to do so by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
Rohtagi is known for representing the Centre in the Aadhaar case, where he made the headlines after arguing that an individual does not have absolute authority over their body, and further said that there was no recognised right to privacy in the Constitution.
Over 700 days later, the matter was settled with the court unanimously ruling that privacy is a fundamental right.
Previously as AG, Rohtagi led the Centre’s arguments in seeking the invalidation of Triple Talaq, the validity of the criminal defamation law, and challenging criminal prosecution of security personnel over alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur.
Rohatgi, who studied law at Mumbai's Government Law College, is a son of former Delhi High Court Judge, Awadh Behari Rohatgi.
(With inputs from Bar & Bench and Livemint.)
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