Mukul Rohatgi asks government to relieve him from Attorney General post

NEW DELHI: In what has come as a surprise move, the country’s top law officer Mukul Rohatgi has offered to step down. Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi has written to the government expressing his unwillingness to continue as the country’s top law officer.

Rohatgi’s decision comes barely a week after his term was extended- for an indefinite period- by the government. He along with solicitor general Ranjit Kumar were granted extension by the government on June 3.

When reached out, Law Ministry officials expressed surprise over the move claiming that they hadn’t any intimation in this regard so far from the Attorney General. Maintaining that the relations between him and the government were cordial, Rohatgi reportedly said that he wants to continue his private practice.

It is pertinent to mention here that recently two additional solicitor generals had written to the law ministry expressing their unwillingness to continue in the office.

After Modi government came to power, Rohatgi was appointed as 14th AG of the country. In the year 1999, Rohatgi- son of former Delhi High Court Judge Justice Awadh Behari Rohatgi- became the additional solicitor general under the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

He represented Gujarat before Supreme Court in 2002 regarding the Gujarat riots and also fake encounter death cases, including the Best Bakery and Zahira Sheikh cases.