Former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, one of India‘s finest legal minds, died of Covid this morning. He was 91. A senior lawyer and Padma Vibhushan recipient, Soli Sorabjee was being treated at a private hospital in Delhi.

Soli Jehangir Sorabjee was born in Mumbai in 1930. He started his law practice in 1953 with the Bombay High Court. In 1971, he was designated senior counsel by the Supreme Court.

Sorabjee became Attorney General first in 1989 and then from 1998 to 2004.

A passionate human rights lawyer,  Sorabjee was appointed a UN Special Rapporteur for Nigeria in 1997.

He joined the UN Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and was its chairman from 1998 to 2004. He was also a member of the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

Sorabjee served as a member of the UN world court or the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 2000 to 2006.

In 2002, he became a member of the Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution of India.

The legal titan was involved in many landmark Supreme Court cases and argued for free speech and press freedom, limiting the police power of the state and a vibrant democracy protected from overreach by Prime Ministers and Governors.