Chennai: Senior advocate and former DMK Rajya Sabha MP R Shanmugasundaram was on Sunday appointed as the new Advocate General of Tamilnadu.
He succeeds Vijay Narayan, who had resigned from the post soon after the DMK government headed by M K Stalin assumed office after the party’s victory in the Assembly elections.
A GO issued by Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu said “in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 165(1) of the Constitution, Governor Banwarilal Purohit hereby appoints Shanmugasaundaram as the Advocate General of Tamilnadu, from the date of his taking charge vice Vijay Narayan, resigned,” it said.
Shanmugasundaram, a former Rajya Sabha MP from 2002 to 2008, has 44 years of experience in the Bar and has been a designated senior counsel for the last 20 years.
He had also been the State Public Prosecutor from 1996 to 2001. An experienced advocate, he studied the developments in criminal law in Britain and attended court works at the Old Bailey Central London Criminal Courts, Croydon Crown Court and Royal Courts of Justice, London.
He also gained work experience at the Crown Prosecution Department at Manchester, studied the investigation procedures adopted there and observed the working system of legal aid and probation procedures in Great Britain.
He was appointed as a counsel for the State of Tamilnadu before the Justice Jain Commission of Inquiry instituted to probe into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The Madras High Court had also appointed him as an amicus curiae in the London hotel case, against former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, considering the public importance and sensitive nature of the case.
During his tenure as a Member of Parliament, he was part of the Indian delegation to the United Nations that took part in its 59th General Assembly in October 2004.