Harish Salve Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography & More StarsUnfolded

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Wife: Trina

Age: 68 Years

Religion: Christianity

Some Lesser Known Facts About Harish Salve

Harish Salve is an Indian lawyer and senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India, who specialises in constitutional, commercial and taxation laws.

In an interview, he disclosed that he was raised with a liberal secularism at his home.

Before becoming a lawyer, Salve worked as a Chartered Accountant, specializing in taxation.

In 1980, he started his law career at JB Dadachandji & Co, Delhi as an intern. However, he later became a full-time lawyer at the same firm. During his tenure at the firm, he got the opportunity to assist Nani Palkhivala, an eminent tax lawyer, in the Minerva Mills case.
Nani Palkhivala

He worked for six years (1980-1986) with former Attorney General, Soli Sorabjee.
Soli J. Sorabjee

Harish Salve was appointed as the Solicitor General of India on 1 November 1999. He served in the position till 3 November 2002. Following the completion of his initial three-year term in 2002, the Indian government extended an offer for him to be nominated for a second three-year term. However, he declined the offer by citing some “personal reasons.”

While working as a lawyer for the Indian government, he handled some significant cases. These included the first anti-dumping case in the Supreme Court and the first case involving the privatization of public sector undertakings (PSUs), known as the BALCO (Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd.) case.

In 2002, he was appointed as Amicus Curiae by the Supreme Court in a Public Interest Litigation that aimed to secure proper investigations into riot cases in Gujarat that came out from the 2002 riots.

In 2003, under the direction of the National Human Rights Commission, Harish Salve handled the rape case of a survivor of the Gujarat Riots named Bilkis Bano. He made a formal appeal to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to initiate a new inquiry into the case, and later, asked for the trial to be relocated to Mumbai instead of being held in Gujarat. This was the sole case related to the Gujarat riots that underwent a fresh investigation led by the CBI.

In 2009, the Indian TV channel India Today ranked him 18th most powerful person in India.

Harish Salve has been assigned as Amicus Curiae by the Supreme Court of India for several cases (particularly in cases concerning environmental preservation). However, in 2011, during a hearing on illegal mining, he decided to withdraw from this role due to his prior representation of one or more of the parties involved.

In 2011, Salve represented Keshub Mahindra in the Bhopal gas tragedy case. In the same year, he provided legal support to the Delhi Police in the midnight crackdown on Baba Ramdev’s supporters.

He has also served as a defence counsel in the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case.

In 2012, he handled the case for Vodafone in a $2.5 billion tax dispute against the Indian government. At first, he lost the case in the Bombay High Court, but later, he managed to win the case in the Supreme Court. He even moved to London temporarily and shifted his office there to dedicate his complete attention to the case.

He condemned the government of India for making a retroactive change to the Income Tax law in the Union Budget of 2012, which rendered the Supreme Court’s decision ineffective.

In May 2013, the Singapore government appointed him as a member of the Singapore International Commercial Courts Committee. He was later also appointed as a member of the Court of Arbitration of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre.
He is also a member of the London Court of International Arbitration and the Permanent Court of International Arbitration (nominated by India).

He was appointed as a member of the English Bar and joined the Blackstone Chambers in July 2013.

In 2015, Harish Salve served as a legal representative for the Bollywood actor Salman Khan in the 2002 hit-and-run accident case in which a car accident led to one person’s death and injuries to four others. Before that, Salman Khan had been sentenced to five years in jail. During the trial, another lawyer from Mumbai named Amit Desai briefly took over the case. But later, the Bombay High Court stopped the earlier decision by the lower court. On 10 December 2015, Salman Khan was declared not guilty of all charges related to the hit-and-run case.

Harish Salve represented India at the International Court of Justice in the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav in May 2017. A Pakistani military court had sentenced Jadhav to death on the charge of spying; however, with the strong arguments presented by Salve in defence of Jadhav, the International Court of Justice decided to temporarily stop Jadhav’s execution until they could reach a final decision. In addition to this, Salve accepted only Rs 1 one rupee as his fee for handling the case.
Harish Salve (left) receiving Rs 1 from Bansuri Swaraj

He refused the offer to serve as Attorney General twice. First, he refused the offer when J. Sorabjee sought to resign after completing three years in the position during the Vajpayee government. Then, in 2017, when Narendra Modi considered him as the first choice for Attorney General, he refused the offer again. This led to Modi delaying the announcement of his selection for the position.

On 16 January 2020, he was assigned as the Queen’s Counsel for the courts of England and Wales.

In 2021, he appealed to the Supreme Court, seeking recusal from his position as the amicus curiae appointed to assist the court in its suo motu proceedings related to the government’s management of the COVID-19 crisis in India. In an interview, he talked about it and said that he sought recusal because of the concerns arising about his close friendship with Sharad Arvind Bobde, the then Chief Justice of India (CJI). He said,
I don’t want this case to be decided under a shadow that I knew the CJI from school and college days.”

He has also been a legal representative for various large corporations such as Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited, Tata Group, and ITC.

He has fought the case of the Krishna- Godavari Basin gas dispute in support of Mukesh Ambani‘s Reliance Industries Limited against Anil Ambani‘s Reliance Natural Resources Limited.

He has appeared for Ratan Tata many times in a privacy petition concerning the Niira Radia tapes scandal.

Harish Salve and Sharad Arvind Bobde, the former Chief Justice of India, were classmates during their school time.

Subhash Chandra of Zee Network and Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways are his best friends.
Subhash Chandra

In an interview, he revealed that as a child, he initially aspired to become an engineer, but as he grew up, his interest shifted towards Chartered Accountancy. This change was influenced by his father, who was also pursuing a career in the same field. Later, his father started working only on income-tax matters, which led to his introduction to Nani Palkhivala, who was working with Harish’s father at that time. This experience significantly influenced Harish Salve, making him more interested in income-tax matters, which ultimately led him to pursue a career as a lawyer specializing in the field.

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