Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar has today been appointed solicitor general of India by the new BJP government’s law ministry, reported the PTI.

Senior advocates Maninder Singh, Tushar Mehta, L Nageshwar Rao, PS Patwalia, Neeraj Kishen Kaul and PS Narasimha would each become additional solicitor general under Kumar.

Kumar is a constitutional law expert who was the Gujarat government’s counsel and amicus curiae in several Supreme Court cases, including the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case, as well as acting for the family of a woman who was allegedly snooped on by Gujarat’s government, asking to restrain the central governments from holding an inquiry into the matter, and working for Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in her disproportionate assets case in Bangalore, according to the PTI.

The attorney general post still lies vacant after controversy over the frontrunner Mukul Rohatgi, whom senior counsel Ram Jethmalani accused of having opposed black money investigations.