K.K Venugopal Likely to Continue as Attorney-General for Another Year

A prominent lawyer and Constitutional expert, K.K Venugopal is likely to continue as Attorney General for another year in India. Venugopal, whose tenure is coming to an end on June 30, is going to receive an extension of another year from the Union Government. This will be the third one-year term extension for Venugopal and the 15th person to serve as Attorney General for India. 

In 1954 at the Mysore High Court, he started his law practice. Venugopal is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India and on 1st July 2017, he was appointed as the Attorney General of India. In 2015, he was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan award by the Government of India and in 2002, he was awarded as Padma Bhushan. 

He is an internationally known jurist who has appeared in many landmark cases in the Supreme Court and High Courts. His arguments were on life and liberty under Article 21, according to his argument it was not an absolute right as the death penalty and incarnation were instances of deprivation of this right. He further supported his argument by elaborating that privacy was not a fundamental right and was deliberately omitted from part 3 of the constitution. 

He also hinted at a possible confrontation between the judiciary and the parliament over the enacted Tribunals reform act, he argued that the term and minimum age qualification of Tribunal members were a matter of policy, which cannot be interfered with by the judiciary. Venugopal had given her fruitful views on the case of the writ petition, filed as public interest litigation on a direction of a case under section 494 of the Indian Penal code against all citizens who commit the offence of bigamy irrespective of their laws. 

In the Karnataka hung assembly case, the congress and other parties’ members moved to the Supreme Court late in the night challenging the Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala’s decision for the invitation. The court’s decision stated that the court will not interfere but they would be reviewing the whole decision within a specified timeframe. 

The Attorney General said that the court didn’t need to worry about MPs since they would be able to vote for whoever they wanted during the floor test. He made this argument on the basis that the anti-defection law did not apply to a floor test at this stage.