“A heart can only discover what it really wants with experience.”- Kathy Bates.
This blog will walk all the law aspirants through the inspiring career story of Lawyer Arun Jaitley tuning into one of the prominent leaders of Bharti Janta Party.
Family & upbringing
Arun Jaitley was born to a family of lawyers, social activist, and philanthropist in the year 1952. They were a partition family; they had a nostalgia about Lahore and disliked Pakistan for having taken Lahore from them. His grandmother had been left with six sons and two daughters when her husband, a mid-level railways officer, died in the 1920s. She played a great role in their education and inspired them to be lawyers.
Jaitley’s parents reached Delhi as refugees in august 1947 and settled in Naraina Vihar. Maharaja Kishen Jaitley, Arun’s father was a lawyer and mother, Ratan Prabha, was a housewife and a social activist.
Jaitley was very passionate about studies, cricket and debates. He completed his schooling from the St. Xavier’s School. Since childhood, Jaitley had a keen interest in law and politics. He completed his graduation from the Shree Ram College of Commerce, Delhi. The beginning of his political career was marked in 1973, by his victory in the election as the President of Delhi University Students’ Union where he took admission to earn a degree in Law.
Career & turning point:
From 1977 onwards, Jaitley started practicing law in several High Courts and the Supreme Court. Jaitley made a never-ending impact on the people of India by winning the election as an Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) candidate when Congress’s rule was very strong. Jaitley was a follower of JP (Jai Prakash Narain) who was an Indian Independence Activist and political leader. Jaitley was detained and imprisoned for 19 months in the Tihar Jail, Delhi when emergency was declared for 22 months. He considers this phase as the turning point in his life as he came across people of different backgrounds during his stay in the jail.
Being associated with the ABVP since a long time, lawyer Arun Jaitley joined the BJP in 1980 and became the president of the youth wing of the BJP and the secretary of the Delhi Unit. In 1990, Jaitley worked on the Bofors Scandal when he was promoted to senior Advocate and appointed as Additional Solicitor General of India. The scandal was related to the illegal kickbacks paid in the US$ 1.3 billion deal between Bofors, a Swedish arms manufacturer and the Government of India.
Further, in 1991 he became the member of the National Executive of the BJP. Lawyer Arun Jaitley was a delegate on behalf of the government of India in The United Nation General Assembly session. In this 1998 session, the bill against drugs and money laundering was introduced.
In 1999 Jaitley seized up as the Minister of State, Department of Information and Broadcasting. He also headed the Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs and became the spokesperson for the BJP just before the General Assembly elections.
Lawyer Arun Jaitley as a Law Minister in the Union Cabinet brought in a several electoral and judicial reforms. He got the Investor Protection Fund and the Advocates Welfare fund set up. He paid special attention to the computerization of the courts and implemented the scheme of setting up of the Fast Track Courts to facilitate the expeditious disposal of cases. He also brought amendments in the Negotiable Instruments Act and the Motor Vehicles Act.
Later, in 2000, Jaitley was made the member of the Rajya Sabha for the first time from Gujarat. He headed the Ministry of Shipping and was again appointed as the Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs. He held the responsibility of modernizing ports by upgrading berths and introducing new berths to improve the efficiency by reducing the turnaround time.
Arun Jaitley was appointed as the Union Cabinet Minister After the resignation of Ramjeth Malani in November. Jaitley, as the Law Minister in the cabinet, introduced many amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, the Civil Procedure Code and the Companies Act. The High Courts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were inaugurated under his counsel. He represented many multinationals, such as Pepsico, Coca-Cola and big industrialists such as the Birla family in the courtroom.
From 2002 to 2003 to function as the National Spokesperson, Jaitley left the cabinet to become the General Secretary of the BJP. Lawyer Arun Jaitley successfully introduced the 84th amendment to the Constitution of India for freezing parliamentary seats till 2026. In 2004 He also introduced the 91st amendment to the Constitution of India for penalizing defections.
Jaitley was acknowledged as the Leader of Opposition and was re-elected as the member of the Rajya Sabha in 2006 and again in 2012 from Gujarat. He supported Anna Hazare for the Jan Lokpal Bill and was actively engaged during the talks of the Women Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha.
Jaitley was nominated as the vice president of the BCCI from North Zone because of his love for cricket, but he resigned in June 2013 when the IPL match-fixing scandal unfolded.
Subsequently, on May 26, 2014, Arun Jaitley became the Finance Minister with an additional charge of Defence Ministry in the new Narendra Modi’s led government.
Did this career story exalt your passion for being a lawyer? Tell us in the comments below.
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