On Friday morning, we lost a veteran jurist. Senior advocate and former Attorney General Soli Jehangir Sorabjee succumbed to Covid-19 at the age of 91. He was undergoing medical treatment in a private hospital in Delhi.
Supreme Court has paid homage to the man with India’s finest legal minds.
Soli Jehangir was born in Bombay in 1930. He started his legal practice in 1953 in Bombay High Court. He was designated as senior advocate by the Supreme Court in 1971.
He was appointed as an Attorney General in 1989 and then from 1998 to 2004.
He is known for his exceptional legal acumen and human rights lawyer. Sorabjee was honored with the highest civilian award in India, the Padma Vibhushan award in March 2002 for the defence of freedom of speech and the protection of human rights.
He had publications also including the Laws of Press Censorship in India (1976) and The Emergency, Censorship and the Press in India, 1975-77 (1977).
The UN appointed him as a Special Rapporteur for Nigeria, in 1997, to report on the human rights situation there. Following his contribution, he became a member and later the Chairman of the UN-Sub Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, from 1998 to 2004. He was a member of the United Nations Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities since 1998. He also served as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 2000 to 2006.
