Senior advocate K K Venugopal has agreed to continue as the Attorney General for India for three more months following a request by the central government, government sources said on Wednesday, 29 June.
His present one-year term was to end on 30 June.
Venugopal, the sources said, was not willing to continue in the constitutional post due to "personal reasons". But following a request by the central government, he has agreed to continue as the top law officer of the Union of India for three more months.
Venugopal, 91, was appointed by the President of India as Attorney General for India in July 2017, succeeding Mukul Rohatgi. He was subsequently reappointed to the post.
The attorney general usually has a tenure of three years. When Venugopal's first term as AG was to end in 2020, he had requested the government to give him a one-year tenure keeping in mind his advanced age.
Last year too, Venugopal was reappointed for one year. In view of the high-profile cases Venugopal is handling in the Supreme Court and his experience at the Bar, the government was keen that he continued as its top law officer.
An eminent advocate of Supreme Court, Venugopal has appeared in a large number of cases involving important issues of Constitutional and corporate law. He was an additional solicitor general of India between 1979 and 1980. He has been awarded Padma Bhushan in 2002 and Padma Vibhushan in 2015.
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