Soli Sorabjee, Former Attorney General, Finest Legal Expert, Dies of Covid-19

Soli Sorabjee, A senior lawyer, Padma Vibhushan was being treated at a private hospital in Delhi.

New Delhi: Renowned Indian jurist and former Attorney General of India Soli Jehangir Sorabjee passed away on Friday, 30 April, at the age of 91 after reportedly losing the battle to COVID-19. He was being treated at a private hospital in Delhi.

Soli Jehangir Sorabjee, born 9 March 1930, was an Indian jurist and former Attorney-General of India. He had been honored with Padma Vibhushan for his defence of the freedom of expression and the protection of human rights.

Soli Sorabjee was born in 1930 in Bombay to a Parsi family. He studied at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai and Government Law College, Mumbai, was admitted to the bar in 1953. At Government Law College, he was awarded the Kinloch Forbes Gold Medal in Roman Law and Jurisprudence (1952)

In 1971, Sorabjee was designated Senior Advocate of the Bombay High Court.
He served as Solicitor-General of India from 1977 to 1980.
He was appointed Attorney-General for India in 9 December 1989 up to 2 December 1990, and then again on 7 April 1998, a post he held until 2004.
In March 2002, Soli Sorabjee was awarded the Padma Vibhushan for his defense of the freedom of expression and the protection of human rights.
He worked on the Citizen’s Justice Committee which represented pro bono the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims.
In March 2006 he was appointed an Honorary Member of the Order of Australia (AM), “for service to Australia-India bilateral legal relations”.

Sorabjee holds several offices in organizations of national and international repute.

He is the chairman of Transparency International and Convenor of the Minority Rights Group. He has served as Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Commission since 1997, a member of the United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities since 1998.
Sorabjee served as member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 2000 to 2006.
Soli J. Sorabjee is also President of the United Lawyers Association.
Vice-President of the Human Rights Committee of the International Bar Association.
Vice-President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association,
Executive Committee member of the International Association of Constitutional Lawyers and member of the Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament Law of the International Law Association.
He is also a Patron of the Media Legal Defence Initiative, a UK-based charity that provides legal aid and assistance to journalists and news media organizations around the world, supports training in media law and promotes the exchange of information, litigation tools and strategies for lawyers working on media freedom cases.