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This is an excerpt from The Constitution Is My Home: Conversations on a Life in Law, by Senior Advocate Indira Jaising, with Ritu Menon (HarperCollins India, 2026).

My appointment as the additional solicitor general of India was exceptional in many ways, apart from my gender. I was the first woman from the Supreme Court bar to hold the position. I had a known record of work on human rights and, of course, gender justice. I was not a member of the ruling Congress party then, nor am I now. In fact, my background could easily have been seen as being at odds with State power. After all, rights are claimed against the State. 

So, I was as surprised as anyone when the appointment came through. To this day, I don’t really know which considerations went into it. I was on a flight from Delhi to Washington DC when I received a call from the Attorney General’s office – personally from the late Goolam E. Vahanvati – asking for my consent to be nominated for the post. 

The appointment of an additional solicitor general is made by the Cabinet Committee on Appointments and rests entirely at the government’s discretion. There are no rules or criteria for who should be appointed to the ASG position. Vahanvati knew me mainly from across the courtroom, as an opponent in the cases I had argued. He had represented Air India in the matters I took up on behalf of the air hostesses in the 1970s. It was deeply satisfying to learn that my opponents respected my legal acumen enough to........

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