Former Attorney General of India and veteran jurist, Soli Sorabjee, who passed away at 91, on Friday morning.
Born in 1930 in Bombay, Soli Jahangir Sorabji started his legal practice in the year 1953 in the Bombay High Court. He was nominated as a senior advocate by the Supreme Court of India in 1971. He became the Attorney General of India, first from 1989–90 and then from 1998–2004.
Sorabji is a well-known human rights lawyer. He was appointed by the United Nations as a Special Rapport for Nigeria in 1997, to report on the human rights situation in that country. Subsequently, he became a member and later chairman of the UN-Sub Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights from 1998 to 2004. He is a member of the sub-commission of the United Nations which deals with the protection of minorities of discrimination and protection, 1998. He has also served as a member of the Permanent Court in the Hague from 2000 to 2006.
Sorabji was also involved in many cases to protect freedom of speech and expression and has been instrumental in banning censorship orders and publications. His publications on the subject include The Laws of Press Censorship in India (1976); The Emergency, Censorship and the Press in India, 1975–77 (1977).
In March 2002, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan Award for freedom of speech and protection of human rights.
