Senior lawyer VT Gopalan dead

Senior lawyer VT Gopalan dead

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:  11.07.2020

Ace senior lawyer and former additional solicitor-general of India V T Gopalan died of cardiac arrest in the wee hours of Friday. He was 78.

The Queen Mary’s College on the Marina promenade and a vast open area of Anna University would thank the designated senior, as he successfully defended central move stalling the Jayalalaithaa regime’s move to build a new secretariat complex after demolishing them, said senior counsel and DMK MP P Wilson, who was assistant solicitor-general during the period. It was T R Baalu, who as the then Union minister for environment and forests, made central clearance a must for taking up a project of such size.

Identified by DMK leader Murasoli Maran for additional solicitor-general of India post, VTG represented the Centre in the high courts of Madras, undivided Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala for eight years from 2000. He also had the distinction of having served under both Congress and BJP-led central governments.

A lawyer with 54 years of practice, VTG was associated with such doyens of the Bar as N G Krishna Iyengar, R Kesava Iyengar, V K T Chari, M K Nambiar, S Mohan Kumaramangalam, K Parasaran, K K Venugopal and G Ramasamy. VTG defended the revenue of the Centre as ASGI in many cases, including constitutional law, customs, central excise, TRIPs, FERA and FEMA. He had also appeared before several other high courts on special assignments for the GoI. He had the privilege of appearing in all high courts and the Supreme Court during his practice.