Eminent jurist and former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, who succumbed to Covid-19 at a hospital here on Friday wrote several books on laws and justice, press censorship and the Emergency, and stood for democratic values. He had vehemently fought against human and fundamental rights violations.
In one of the major court battles in recent times, relating to fundamental right violations was the Shreya Singhal case in which the Supreme Court in 2015 agreed to his submissions and struck down a provision in the Information Technology Act relating to restrictions on online freedom of speech and expression.
The apex court held that section 66A was unconstitutional as being violative of freedom of speech guaranteed under the Constitution, the argument put forth by Sorabjee, Considered close to Vajpayee, Sorabjee had led India’s fight before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) when Pakistan sought compensation from India for downing of their naval patrol aircraft Atlantic in 1999 just after the Kargil war.
The ICJ at the Hague ruled in India’’s favour after taking note of Sorabjee’s submissions and dismissed Pakistan’’s plea for compensation, saying it had no jurisdiction over the matter. He also appeared and worked for the Citizen’’s Justice Committee which represented anti-Sikh riots victims. Born in a Parsi family in 1930, Sorabjee enrolled at the bar in 1953 and was designated senior advocate by the Bombay High Court in 1971. He served in the legal domain for close to seven decades.
Sorabjee was appointed by the United Nations as a Special Rapporteur for Nigeria in 1997 to report on the human rights situation in that country.