Vahanvati passes away: The controversial tenure of UPA's legal fix-it man

Former attorney general Goolam Vahanvati who passed away at the age of 65 on Tuesday enjoyed a fair deal of goodwill that cut across politics, corporates and fellow lawyers. However, despite a long and successful legal career, the last decade of his career was marked for its fair share of controversy.

Born on 7 May, 1949, Vahanvati began his legal career in the early 1970s as a junior to his father Essabhoy Gulamhusein Vahanvati after studying in St Xavier’s College and Government Law College .

In a detailed profile of him in the Caravan magazine, Vahanvati recounted how the death of his father when he was 26  pushed him to increase his workload significantly and he quickly rose in the ranks, becoming a senior in the Bombay High Court bar after being a part of nearly every important case in the court.

But it was not only his hard work in the legal corridors and his knowledge that got him noticed. While the call from Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to be the state’s advocate general was said to have come as a surprise, Vahanvati had reportedly cultivated his relations with the political establishment by aiding Sharad Pawar’s lawyer in an earlier defamation case and getting another friend to get Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia to push his case.

While few have ever raised doubts about his legal acumen, his proximity to Deshmukh, and his successor Sushilkumar Shinde, who was later elevated to the Central government after the UPA’s 2004 election win, may have helped swing the post of the attorney general in his favour in 2004. For a man who had once confessed to a friend that he dreamt of being transported in a official car with a red beacon, Vahanvati may have got his wish – but his friendships may have have resulted in his tenure being a controversial one.

The biggest controversy of his lifetime involved the 2G scam in which he faced a CBI investigation. Former Telecom Minister A Raja claimed that he had been misled by the attorney general and former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura accused Vahanvati of giving false statements against him, saying the lawyer did so to “disassociate” his role in formulation of the revised first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy for distribution of the 2G spectrum licences.

On 6 May, deposing before the special 2G court, Behura had claimed that Vahanvati had also given a false statement regarding the draft press release about issuance of letters of intent (LoIs) to eligible telecom firms.

There were also murmurs about his proximity to industrialist Anil Ambani when the Niira Radia tapes were leaked.

However, despite the discomfort of the media glare and having to appear in trial court in the 2G case, Vahanvati was untouched by the scandal and was given a clean chit by the investigating agency in the Supreme Court.

The attorney general was also in the eye of the storm over the coal block allocation case when it emerged that law minsiter Ashwani Kumar, Vahanvati and other legal officers had met with the CBI chief to peruse the investigating agency’s report before it was submitted to the Supreme Court. However, while legal minister Ashwini Kumar ended up having to resign, Vahanvati escaped unscathed.

Vahanvati was also accused of changing his stand on various issues be like the Vodafone retrospective tax with some of those who know him saying that he was smart enough to find a legal solution to any problem, says a detailed Outlook article on him .

Vanahvati’s tenure also witnessed the resignations of eminent lawyers like Gopal Subramaniam and Rohinton Nariman as solicitor generals, while additional solicitor general, Harin Raval resigned saying that Vahanvati had compromised his position in court. He faced charges of undeclared assets in a UBS bank account from former MP Gurudas Dasgupta and both filed legal notices against each other in the case.

However, despite all the controversy, Vahanvati left his stamp on the legal world with cases like the nine-judge bench hearing on the Ninth Schedule; journalist Kuldip Nayar’s challenge to the amendment to the Representation of the People’s Act with regard to the Rajya Sabha; the tainted ministers case, in all matters pertaining to the sealing and the challenge to the Delhi Laws Special Provisions Act, 2007 and challenges to the Master Plan 2021.

With Zimbabwe High Court Judge Steven Majied, Vahanvati also held an inquiry into the allegations of racism in Zimbabwean cricket in September 2004 on the request of the International Cricket Council. Vahanvati was also the sole member of the Single Member Commission to inquire into allegations of racial abuse on South African cricketers during the South African tour of Australia in December 2005.

Vahanvati was no stranger to the finer things in life and his fondness for rock music, food, pens, horses and his farmhouse in Pune, where took great pleasure in gardening, were documented in various reports. Described as a ‘sweet’ man and a great raconteur, Vahanvati also took time to lecture students and at one point wrote on food for the Taj Hotel.

It was the ending of the UPA tenure that brought down the curtains of his tenure as attorney general, with Vahanvati putting in his resignation, and brought to a close a 10-year period that kept him in the headlines but not in the manner that the normally reserved lawyer would have liked.