India News: NEW DELHI: Covid-19 ended the life of one of India’s tallest legal luminaries, Soli J Sorabjee, whose illustrious career contributed in shaping India’.
Soli Sorabjee, eminent jurist who had been the country’s highest law officer and appeared in cases that had far-reaching impact on the Constitution, governance and free speech, passed away on Friday morning after a battle with Covid-19. He was 91.
Sorabjee is survived by his wife, a daughter and two sons. Sorabjee had till recently been active not only in the legal arena but also used to pen articles for media houses on complicated legal matters.
Sorabjee had been attorney-general of India from 1989 to 1990 and thereafter from 1998 to 2004. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee often consulted him on important national issues.
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Rahul Gandhi, the former president of the Congress and a key member of the Nehru-Gandhi family that owns and controls that party, has belatedly acknowledged that the imposition of the dreaded Emergency by PM Indira Gandhi in the mid-1970s was “a mistake”. This grudging and half-hearted attempt to face the truth is unlikely to wash away the monstrous impact of the Emergency or the sins that are associated with it.
Some observations made by Rahul in a recent interaction with an American university need closer scrutiny. He claims that while the imposition of the Emergency was wrong, the Congress did not and does not have the “capability” to capture institutions. “Even if we want to do it, we can’t do it,” he says. This needs to be tested on the anvil of truth because the dreaded Emergency, imposed on the night of 25 June 1975, turned a vibrant democracy into a fascist state.