Mukul Rohatgi asks govt to relieve him from Attorney General post

NEW DELHI: Attorney General Mukul Rohatgihas conveyed to the government that he be relieved from the post which he has held for three years. Rohatgi said that he had written to the government last month conveying his wish that he would not like a re-appointment to the post of the country's top law officer, and wanted to return to private practice. He said he was appointed by the Narendra Modi government after it came to power in May 2014 and he has served his three-year term. He said he considers this duration as enough and would like to return to his practice. Rohatgi was appointed as the AG immediately after the BJP government came to power in May 2014 and during the stint, he argued in many contentious matters like the challenge to NJAC Act on appointment of judges for the higher judiciary. Recently, he assisted the apex court in 'triple talaq' matter in which the judgement is reserved. Early this month, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had extended his tenure until further orders. Rohatgi, son of former Delhi High Court judge Justice Awadh Behari Rohatgi, represented the Gujarat government in the Supreme Court in the 2002 Gujarat riots and fake encounter death cases, including the Best Bakery and Zahira Sheikh cases. A sought-after corporate lawyer, Rohatgi had also been representing the Italian embassy in the apex court in a case relating to the two Italian marines involved in the killing of two fishermen off the Kerala coast in 2012. Besides some of these high-profile cases handled by him, Rohatgi had also appeared on behalf of big corporates in the 2G scam trial.