Appointments Committee of Cabinet accepts Ranjit Kumar's resignation from solicitor general post

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet accepted the resignation of Ranjit Kumar from the post of solicitor general on Wednesday, according to media reports.

Appointments Committee of Cabinet accepts the resignation of Ranjit Kumar from the post of Solicitor General.

— ANI (@ANI) November 1, 2017

Kumar, who had submitted his resignation on 20 October, had cited personal reasons for the resignation. He said that he has family issues to attend to and had to resign because he couldn't give time to as required by the office of the Solicitor-General.

CNN News18 had earlier reported that the Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta is now the front-runner for the post. He has already been leading the arguments in many cases with great political implications.

File image of former Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar. Twitter: @DailyExcelsior1

There are also speculations that one of the reasons for his resignation could be that the Modi government wants a new legal team which has more teeth and is more discreet.

Kumar was appointed as the Solicitor General in June 2014. He had been a counsel for the Gujarat government and amicus curiae in several cases in the Supreme Court. Among the cases he represented, was the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. Kumar had also represented then Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case pending in a Bangalore court.

He had replaced senior advocate Mohan Parasaran, who had tendered his resignation after the BJP-led NDA government took charge, according to The Indian Express.

Kumar is the second top law officer to quit in the space of just a few months after Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi. Rohatgi's three-year tenure was supposed to come to an end on 19 June and he had asked the Central government not to consider him for reappointment or an extension as the country’s top law officer.

Rohatgi had said that he had written to the government in May conveying his desire to discontinue as attorney-general and return to private practice. Rohatgi had said that he had a fantastic relation with the prime minister, law minister and bureaucracy during the tenure. "Even if I return to private practice, my services will be available to NDA government, BJP and its leaders as and when needed," he had said.

With inputs from agencies