Eminent jurist Soli Sorabjee died of COVID-19 at the age of 91 at a hospital in Delhi on Friday morning.
Sorabjee, who was born in 1930, enrolled at the bar in 1953. He was designated a senior advocate at the Bombay High Court in 1971.
Sorabjee was appointed attorney general of India in December 1989 and held the post for a year. In 1998, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government appointed him to the post again, and Sorabjee continued in the position until 2004.
Sorabjee was famous for his defence of freedom of speech and work against censorship of the press. He received the Padma Vibhushan in 2002.
Tributes to Soli Sorabjee poured in after news of his death emerged. Union Minister Smriti Irani described him on Twitter as a “giant giant” who was always “ready to lend a helping hand.”
Former BJP MP and veteran journalist Swapan Dasgupta tweeted Sorabjee was a “A great lawyer, a man of erudition and above all a perfect gentleman, Soli was a pillar of the anti-Congress movement”.