Politician, Advocate
NAME: Arun Maharaj Kishen Jaitley
PROFESSION: Politician, Senior Advocate (Supreme Court), Author
POLITICAL PARTY: Bhartiya Janata Party
BORN: 28 December, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH: New Delhi
DIED: 24 August, 2019
FATHER’S NAME: Maharaj Kishen Jaitley (Lawyer)
MOTHER’S NAME: Ratan Prabha Jaitley
SPOUSE: Sangeeta Jaitley
SIBLINGS: Madhu Bhargava (Sister)
CHILDREN: Rohan Jaitley & Sonali Jaitley
EDUCATION: B.com from Shri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi; LLB from Faculty of Law, Delhi University
PARTY: Bharatiya Jana Sangha (BJS), Janata Party till 1980, Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP).
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: arunjaitley.com
BOOKS: Andhere se Ujale ki Ore,
ARTICLES & SPEECHES: A Compilation, Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas
REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENTS: Jaitley had played a significant role as a strategic planner for the BJP in eight Assembly elections.
He had helped Prime Minister and party colleague Narendra Modi win the 2002 General Assembly election in Gujarat.
He also managed the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and won along with Uma Bharti in 2003.
Jaitley was deliberately assigned in Karnataka which faced Assembly election at the same time as the Lok Sabha polls in 2004.
In 2007, he was also appointed as the general secretary in charge of elections to Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
In 2009, he was appointed as the Vice President of BCCI.
The late politician was also the president of the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA).
AWARDS: Padma Vibhushan (2020) (posthumously).
BACKGROUND: He was born on 28 December,1952 in New Delhi. Arun Jaitley was born to a family of lawyers. His father, Maharaj Kishen Jaitley, was a lawyer and his mother, Ratan Prabha Jaitley, was a housewife and a social activist at the same time. During the time of partition of India, his father migrated to India from Lahore (Pakistan). Jaitley wanted to become a Chartered Accountant (CA) in his younger days. He was married to Sangeeta, daughter of ex-finance minister of J&K, in 1982. Arun Jaitley had two children, both of them are lawyers.
UPBRINGING & EDUCATION: Arun Jaitley had done his schooling at St. Xavier’s School, Delhi. He had done his graduation in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi in 1973. He had also done LL.B from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, in 1977.
LEGAL CAREER: He had done his law from University of Delhi. He practiced law in the Supreme Court of India and several High Courts from 1987. He was appointed as a Senior Advocate in the Delhi High Court in 1990. He was designated as an Additional Solicitor General in 1989 by the V.P. Singh government. He did the paperwork for the investigations into the Bofors Scandal. He was appointed as the Government of India’s delegate to the United Nations General Assembly Session which approved the Declaration on Laws Relating to Drugs and Money Laundering in 1998. He was the Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India.
ANIL KUMAR KHURANA vs MCD, 1996
In 1996, Jaitley represented the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in a suit filed by a local over alleged discrepancies in the construction permits granted to builders operating in various parts of the National Capital Region. Jaitley defended his client stoically and said that the petitioners are guilty of misrepresentation and suppression of material facts and therefore, are not entitled to invoke equitable jurisdiction of Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
PEPSI vs COKE, 2003
Along with former AG Ashok Desai, Jaitley represented PepsiCo in a petition filed against its rival in 2003. Jaitley evoked the Law of Torts while arguing on behalf of his client, claiming that the defendant had induced several of his client’s employees, bottlers, distributors, consultants and clients by offering wages much higher than the average remuneration in the industry at the time.
UNION OF INDIA vs PEPSI, COKE, 2013
In 2013, the Supreme Court of India slammed cola giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo Inc. after media reports revealed that ads of the companies painted on rock faces or nailed to trees along the 56-km stretch of the mountain road from Manali to Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh. Arguing for PepsiCo, Arun Jaitley, defended his client by stating that advertisements in India were handled by the companies’ local franchisees (bottlers).
In 2009, Jaitley stopped practising law due to his political career.
POLITICAL CAREER: Arun Jaitley had a keen interest in law and politics since childhood, and his victory in the election as the President of the Delhi University Students’ Union marked the beginning of his political career.
In 1977, he was appointed as the president of Delhi ABVP and All India Secretary of the ABVP.
After that, he joined BJP in 1980. Then he became the president of the youth wing of BJP.
In 1991, he became a member of BJP’s National Executive.
He was a delegate in the United Nations General Assembly Session in 1998, representing the government of India.
In 1999, just before the General Assembly Elections, he became the spokesperson of BJP.
He joined the Council of Ministers as the Minister of State.
He was made a member of the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in 2000.
He was appointed as the Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs.
Then, he was appointed as the Cabinet Minister after the resignation of Ramjeth Malani.
Also, he was the Law Minister in the Cabinet and introduced several amendments to the Civil Procedure Code, the Criminal procedure Code and the Companies Act.
He became the General Secretary of the BJP in 2002.
He was again elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha in 2006.
From Gujarat, he was re-elected as a member of Rajya Sabha for the third term in 2012.
From 2009 to 2012, he was recognised as the Leader of Opposition.
On 26 May, 2014, he became the Finance Minister along with Defence Minister, but later it was transferred to another person.
When Jaitley was the finance minister, the BJP government had taken several economic initiatives like demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Also, the Modi government merged the railway budget with the general Budget. Jaitley also introduced Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to resolve the issues with companies that were turning insolvent.
In 2019, Arun Jaitley, in a letter to Narendra Modi, cited his health as a reason for not taking an active role in the formation of the new government. On 24 August, 2019, he died in the hospital (AIIMS) at the age of 66.
POSITIONS HELD:
Leader of the Opposition (Rajya Sabha) (2009-2014)
Minister of Defence of India (2014, 2017)
Leader of the House (Rajya Sabha) (2014-2019)
Minister of Finance of India (2014-2019)
Minister of Corporate Affairs of India (2014-2019)
Minister of Information and Broadcasting (2014-2016)
Minister of Law and Justice (2003-2004) (2000-2002)
Minister of Commerce and Industry (2003-2004)
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting (1999-2000)
Member of Parliament (2000-2019)
CONTROVERSIES: When he was the president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), he faced allegations that he was involved in the financial irregularities.
He warned the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over a conspiracy against Gujarat politicians in 2012.
In January 2019, he accused CBI of Investigative Adventurism in the ICICI Bank – Videocon fraud case.
LEGACY: Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla stadium was renamed as Arun Jaitley Stadium at a function held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in memory of Arun Jaitley.
In 2020, Home Minister Amit Shah unveiled a statue of Arun Jaitley at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
