Advocate General (AG) Ashutosh Kumbhakoni served in the position of the top law officer during three consecutive governments.
The Maharashtra state cabinet Tuesday accepted the resignation of Advocate General (AG) Ashutosh Kumbhakoni.
The state cabinet on September 12 had kept in abeyance till December 31 his resignation, which he had tendered to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government fell. Kumbhakoni worked as the AG with three consecutive governments in the state since June 2017.
Kumbhakoni, when asked about his future plans, said, “I had a satisfactory tenure as the AG and will resume my private practice.”
Kumbhakoni, who had an over five-year tenure as the top law officer of the state, was first appointed as the AG through a notification issued on June 7, 2017, during the Devendra Fadnavis-led government till October 2019 and was retained by the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government for two and half years till June this year. He continued as the AG for over five months after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde took oath. His tenure as the AG of Maharashtra is the third longest after H M Seervai (17 years) and Ravi Kadam (seven years).
Kumbhakoni always maintained cordial relations with all political parties in the state. Be it the 1995 Shiv Sena-BJP government or the 1999-2014 Congress-NCP governments, he always either handled or appeared for cases related to various state government departments.
On December 7, 2019, the law and judiciary department of the state government issued a notification stating that the Governor of Maharashtra had decided to retain Kumbhakoni to be the AG. As his resignation was kept in abeyance, he continued to remain AG as the December 2019 notification still held power.
As per Article 165 (3), the advocate general shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor and shall receive such remuneration as the Governor may determine for the conduct of government business.Kumbhakoni resigned six months after being appointed as a judge in 2008 over issues related to his seniority. He also held the post of the first associate advocate general of Maharashtra for more than three years from April 1, 2005 during the Congress-NCP government.
Born on July 12, 1959, in a family of lawyers, Kumbhakoni completed graduation in Solapur and pursued education at ILS Law College, Pune and enrolled with the Bar Council in 1982. He started his practice at Bombay High Court in 1992-93.
Kumbhakoni represented Maharashtra government in various key matters, including petitions seeking a CBI probe against former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh based on allegations made by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh; Covid-19 management-related pleas, pleas related to overcrowding in prisons, the Melghat Malnutrition PIL and others.
As the AG, Kumbhakoni had justified before the courts the state’s decision to fell trees for the Aarey Metro car shed and supported the state’s views during the Thackeray-led MVA government which had decided to move the Metro-3 car shed from Aarey to the 102-acre salt pan land in Kanjurmarg. Soon after Shinde assumed power, the government decided to reverse MVA’s decision.
In September 2020, the Supreme Court prima facie opined that Maharashtra had not shown any extraordinary situation for providing reservations to Marathas in excess of 50 per cent and that the quota will not be applicable to jobs and admissions in educational institutions in the interim. Kumbhakoni had denied the claim by the state’s former standing counsel, Nishant Katneshwarkar, that the apex court’s decision went against the government as the AG had not argued for the state even once in either the Bombay High Court or the Supreme Court.
Kumbhakoni had told The Indian Express that the state had appointed senior advocate V A Thorat, a Maratha himself, as the special counsel to represent it in the case in 2019 and Kumbhakoni was asked not to appear in the matter due to demand made by the Maratha community in that regard. “I kept myself away from court proceedings. However, I had left no stone unturned in preparing for the case so that the reservation granted was sustained in the court,” Kumbhakoni had said.
In August 2017, two months after Kumbhakoni took over as the AG, the High Court had pulled up the then Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government for the manner in which it was withdrawing its charge of bias against Justice A S Oka (currently Supreme Court judge) in the noise pollution matter seeking transfer of the case to another bench. AG Kumbhakoni had submitted in the High Court a two-page communication in that regard. The High Court had then asked the state to “show remorse” and apologise through an affidavit. Later, the state had tendered an unconditional apology, which the court had accepted.