Raju Ramachandran is a

senior advocate The title of Senior Counsel or State Counsel ( post-nominal letters: SC) is given to a senior lawyer in some countries that were formerly part of the British Empire. "Senior Counsel" is used in current or former Commonwealth countries or jurisdic ...

at the Supreme Court of India and a former Additional Solicitor General. He served as an '' amicus curiae'' (friend of the court) for the Supreme Court of India in the

2002 Gujarat riots The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hin ...

case and in the appeal of

Ajmal Kasab Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab (13 July 1987 – 21 November 2012) was a Pakistani terrorist and a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist fighter organization, through which he took part in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks in Maharashtr ...

in the 2008 Mumbai attacks case.

Early life and education

Ramchandran was brought up in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

. He studied economics at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. Initially he wanted to be a journalist but he was so affected by the '' Kesavananda Bharati judgment'' that he decided to study law. He studied law at the Faculty of Law of Delhi University.

As a lawyer

Ramchandran joined the bar in July 1976 at the chambers of MK Ramamurthi and three and half years later started an independent practice. He qualified as an

Advocate-on-Record Advocate-on-Record is an advocate who is entitled under the Order IV of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 (previously Order IV of the Supreme Court of India Rules, 1966), framed by the Supreme Court of India under Article 145 of the Constitution, to ...

in the Supreme Court of India and was designated as a Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in September, 1996 at the age of 42. He was elected as Vice-President of the Supreme Court Bar Association for 2001 – 2002. In 2002 the NDA Government appointed him as an Additional Solicitor General of India and he remained so till the change of government in 2004. He has argued several important cases in the Supreme Court and various High Courts in various branches of law including Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Service Law, Admiralty Law, Civil Law and Copyright Law. He was an

amicus curae An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on ...

in deciding the appeal of the

in relation to his conviction in the 2008 Mumbai attacks case. He also acted as an amicus curae in the Gulbarg Society case related to the

. He had donated his fees in the Mumbai attack case to the legal service authority which was directed to be distributed among family members of the eighteen state policemen and other security personnel who sacrificed their lives in the 26/11 anti-terror operations. This was described as an act of "high professional ethics" and was appreciated by the Supreme Court of India. Ramachandran was the counsel for the Justice Sawant Committee under the Judges Inquiry Act-1968, which probed the charges against Justice V Ramaswami. He also represented the state of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

before the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, besides the Justice RS Pathak Inquiry Committee, which inquired into issues arising from the Volcker Report.

References

{{2002 Gujarat riots Additional Solicitors General of India 1954 births Living people 20th-century Indian lawyers Indian Senior Counsel 2002 Gujarat riots People from New Delhi

Early life and education

As a lawyer

Further reading

References