Adv. R Venkataramani
Adv. R Venkatramani has been the Attorney General of India and appeared extensively in indirect tax cases. He is appointed as a Member, Law Commission of India in 2010. He has been appearing for the State of Tamil Nadu as a Special Senior Counsel for the past 12 years and also acting as Special Senior Counsel for the State of Andhra Pradesh.
He is also retained by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to represent its cases before the Supreme Court and the Electricity Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi. Being engaged by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as Special Counsel. He has also acted as Standing Counsel for various Universities and Public Sector Corporations; Counsel for the Supreme Court in matters pertaining to the employees of the Court; Co-opted member of the Expert Group constituted by the Ministry of Minority Affairs to examine and determine the structure and functions of an Equal Opportunity Commission. He was invited to be Member of the Ethics Committee of the Indian Council for Medical Research; Member cum office bearer of several Lawyers’ Associations; Life Member of Indian Society of International Law: Resource person of the Society for its Annual Summer Courses and actively participating in the Projects of the Society; Member, Indian Law Institute.
He has also served as Law Member in the ‘Expert Group on Welfare Legislations’ set up by the Planning Commission of India in the year 1990; Member of the South Asian Task Force on Judiciary consisting of Members of SAARC Nations to submit reports on the conditions of Judiciary, reforms in Institutional structures and conditions of service etc with a view to enhancing rule of law and availability of efficacious legal remedies; on the Panel of the Jury invited for Public Hearings on Child Labour at New Delhi in 1997 and on Crimes on Women at Bangalore in 1999; Member of the Sub-Committee on Directive Principles of State Policy, constituted by the Commission reviewing the working of the Constitution under the Chairmanship of Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah. He has been invited to speak at the workshop Jointly organised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and International Commission of Jurists at GENEVA on the 4th to 6th March, 2001.
The workshop was designed to submit a report to the Human Rights Commission, on the Optional Protocol to the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966. He has also been requested by the ICJ to coordinate with its activities in the Afro-Asian region, particularly pertaining to ICESCR. He is also associated with the International Working Group engaged in drafting an Instrument on the Right to Food following an International Conference held at BERLIN in May 2002. He was also invited to be involved in the Nepalese Constitution drafting and experience sharing exercise (2008).
He has several publications to his credit including: Books- on ‘Land Reforms’ (Co-author: 1975); ‘Judgements of Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy’ (Former Judge of the Supreme Court) published by the International Institute of Human Rights Society (1995); Volume on ‘Torts’ in the series of Halsbury’s Laws of India, published by Butterworths; Restatement of Indian Law (Public Interest Litigation) [sponsored by the Committee on Restatement of Laws – Joint Committee of the Supreme Court of India and Indian Law Institute]. He is currently working on- ‘Scope and application of International Instruments in Domestic Law making and Judicial Enforcement’ and a book on Constitutional Rights and Jurisprudence.