Attorney General KK Venugopal's term extended
The Central government has extended the tenure of Attorney General KK Venugopal by one more year till June 30, 2022, said sources on Monday. Last year, his tenure was extended by one year. Venugopal was appointed as AG on July 1, 2017. He took over as the 15th Attorney General of India after former AG Mukul Rohatgi resigned.
Venugopal continued in the post after the Narendra Modi government won a second term in 2019.
He was earlier considered for the post of Attorney General under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government. The post was initially offered to Fali Nariman, who had rejected the post.
Back then, the next two senior advocates who were being considered for the post were Soli Sorabjee and KK Venugopal (in that order), but Soli Sorabjee accepted it.
Venugopal has been a practising lawyer for nearly six decades. He was Additional Solicitor General once in Morarji Desai’s Government. Widely regarded as an expert in Constitutional Law, Venugopal shifted base to Delhi from Chennai, 25 years after joining the Bar in Madras.
By his own admission, Venugopal joined the legal field by sheer accident as he could not complete his BSc in Physics.
He enrolled at the Bar in January 1954 in the then Mysore High Court and thereafter in the Madras High Court, and started his practice under his father, MK Nambiar. He initially practiced in litigation relating to the grant of motor vehicle permits, inter-State permits and variation of routes.
He began appearing in the Supreme Court in the 1960s when the Advocates Act was enacted. The Act provided for a unified bar throughout the country. By enrolling in one High Court, a lawyer would be entitled to practice in all High Courts in India as well as in the Supreme Court of India.
He grew in eminence as a Constitutional Law Expert and was designated Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in 1972.
