Abhishek Manu Singhvi Biography

Abhishek Manu Singhvi Biography

Abhishek Manu SInghvi

Abhishek Manu Singhvi (born 24 February 1959) is an Indian politician belonging to Indian National Congress party, he is also a Member of the Parliament of India representing Rajasthan in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. He was formerly the spokesperson of the Congress party. On April 23, 2012 he quit as the Chairperson of Parliament Standing Committee on Law and Justice and also resigned as Congress spokesperson due to allegations of personal indiscretion.Dr Abhishek Singhvi is an eminent jurist, parliamentarian, visible media personality, well known columnist, author and commentator. He is a Member of Parliament; the senior most National Spokesperson of the Congress Party; the youngest designated Senior Advocate, Supreme Court (at age 34); a former and youngest Additional Solicitor General of India (ASG) (at 37) and former elected Vice President, Supreme Court Bar Association. He is currently the Chairman of the AICC All India Law and Human Rights Department and Chairman, Parliamentary Committee on Law, Justice, and Personnel & Grievances. He was formerly Vice Chairman of Congress’ Media Department.

EDUCATION

B.A.(Hons.), M.A., Ph.D., PIL Educated at St. Columba’s School, Delhi, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, U.K. and Havard University, U.S.A.He topped India at the school leaving Indian School Certificate exam and did BA Economics Hons, St Stephen’s College, and MA and PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge, UK. Abhishek Manu Singhvi also taught at St. John’s College, Cambridge and did a summer program, PIL, from Harvard, USA. He has lectured to student/faculty groups and general audiences at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Boston MIT and George Washington Universities, to NGOs and think tanks (like Heritage Foundation, International Council of World Affairs in Washington, DC, USA) and addressed several international conferences, including those at Paris and Pakistan. He was conferred honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Amity, Rajasthan and Jain Viswa Bharati Universities. He is visiting Trumbull Lecturer at Yale University, USA in 2011.Constitutional law, administrative law, corporate law, commercial law and international commercial arbitrations are his special areas of professional interest. He has been a member of the Supreme Court created and administered bilateral legal forums, including the Indo British, Indo US, Indo Canadian and Indo Israel ones.

PERSONAL LIFE AND FAMILY

Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi son of Dr. Laxmi Mall Singhvi and Shrimati Kamla Singhvi born on 24/02/1959 his birth place is Jodhpur (Rajasthan) he is married to Shrimati Anita Singhvi having Two Sons.His interests include reading biographies, Hindi film music, watching action thrillers and travel.His association with the media has been noted since a long time, with the help of his expression force and communication through his amusing and humorous, self-possessed non emotional conversational talks. It wasn’t a child’s play to snare and trap the political leader cum keen author in the media’s discussions due to his sermon and speech when articulated cleared about his deep thoughts and expressions about any given topic, be it current or what happened off late! Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi reflects his stature of being an attractive source to the dynamic and ever-popular televised urban privileged and influential class of the society.

POSITIONS HELD

1997-98 Additional Solicitor General of India 2001 onwards National Spokesperson, Indian National Congress April 2006 Elected to Rajya Sabha Aug. 2006 – May 2009 and Aug. 2009-July 2011 Member, Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice Aug. 2006 – Aug. 2007 Member, Joint Committee on Offices of Profit Member, Joint Committee to examine the Constitutional and Legal position relating to Office of Profit Member, Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Urban Development Sept. 2006 – Sept. 2010 Member, Committee of Privileges July 2010 onwards Member, Consultative Committee for the Ministry of External Affairs July 2011 onwards Chairman, Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice Member, General Purposes Committee.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi is an eminent personality in the Indian Political Scenario. He belongs to the Indian National Congress and is also a Member of the Parliament of India representing Rajasthan in the Rajya Sabha. Having acknowledged by the Global Leader of Tomorrow Award in 1999, he has been an actively inspiring role model for the youngsters. In 2007, he was invited to hold lectures on Federalism which was printed in the prominent and esteemed IIPA journal apart from the best essay.Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi reflects his stature of being an attractive source to the dynamic and ever-popular televised urban privileged and influential class of the society.Abhishek Manu Singhvi has constantly been a source of inspiration and motivation for the youth. His communication skills have also led to him take lecture in eminent universities. He is an active communicator with a good sense of humour which influences the youth to a great extent.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi is of the view that people are always born with a silver spoon, however if they do not fight hard to prove themselves in whatever career they choose, then they would get rejected in fraction of seconds by the society. He says, “The actual test of a person’s potential gradient comes to test, when they start to perform”. Abhishek Manu Singhvi cites his own example that how confused he was when he had to choose a field but at that point of time his father became his inspiration and gave him courage.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s association with the media has been noted since a long time, with the help of his expression force and communication through his amusing and humorous, self-possessed non emotional conversational talks. Dr.Abhishek Manu Singhvi contribution in media includes the ‘Candid Corner’, a column written by him in Hindustan Times which are also published in a book form. Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi reflects his stature of being an attractive source to the dynamic and ever-popular televised urban privileged and influential class of the society.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi The writer

Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi has long been an accomplished writer and columnist.  In 2006, his book ‘Reflection of Abhishek Singvi’ was published and was widely acclaimed and came with a foreword by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi column ‘Candid Corner’ in the one of the leading dailies, Hindustan Times became much popular among the readers. Later, it was published as a book. He also wrote for a fortnightly column in ‘Indya.com’ and used to write for ‘The Pioneer’ and also ‘Dainik Bhaskar’.

Besides this , Dr. Singhvi ‘s articles have also been published in magazines and periodicals. Some Some soon to be out writings by him are ‘Collection of Legal Writings’ and ‘Emergency Powers: A Comparative Study’ are worth mentioning.

With a life of umpteen achievements before him, Dr Singhvi quit as the chairperson of the Parliament Standing Committee on Law and Justice and as the Congress Spokesman on 23^rd of April, 2012

Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi is an eminent jurist, parliamentarian, visible media personality, well known columnist, author and commentator. Abhishek Manu Singhvi  is a Member of Parliament; the senior most National Spokesperson of the Congress Party; the youngest designated Senior Advocate, Supreme Court (at age 34); a former and youngest Additional Solicitor General of India (ASG) (at 37) and former elected Vice President, Supreme Court Bar Association. He is currently the Chairman of the AICC All India Law and Human Rights Department and Chairman, Parliamentary Committee on Law, Justice, Personnel & Grievances. Abhishek Manu Singhvi was formerly Vice Chairman of Congress’ Media Department.

BOOKS PUBLISHED

Writes a popular column, ‘Candid Corner’ in the Hindustan Times; his columns have been published in a book form as ‘Candid Corner: Reflections of Abhishek Singhvi’, 2006 with a Foreword by the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and also released by him; fortnightly columnist, earlier in ‘Indya.com’, ‘The Pioneer’ and now in the ‘Hindustan Times’; also a monthly columnist in India’s largest Hindi daily, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’; has written several articles in leading magazines and periodicals; ‘Collection of Legal Writings’ (under publication) and ‘Emergency Powers: A Comparative Study’ (under publication).

The first is an article titled ‘Ensuring transparency’ by Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the prestigious magazine Seminar issue No 502: June 2001. There are two other articles – one in the India Today issue dated December 7, 1998 — an article titled ‘Official Secrets’ by Sumit Mitra, and the second — a book review in Frontline Vol 15 No. 7 dated April 4 -17, 1998 by Barbara Harriss — White. The book in question is Corruption in India – Agenda for Action Edited by S Guhan and Samuel Paul.

First the opening paragraph from the book review (in Frontline):

“TO all intents and purposes, India is the most robust of Third World democracies with most of the formal elements of good governance: a pluralist democracy, a market economy, a state intended to be developmental, a functioning civil society, institutions of free association, acknowledgement, at least in law, that transparency and information are the gateways to accountability. Yet, according to the Berlin-based NGO, Transparency International, India has the dubious distinction of being bracketed along with China and Indonesia, the world’s most corrupt countries. This means that just under half the entire world’s population has to contend with, and to fear, levels of corruption which distort all the items on the governance checklist.”

And here is a very similar first Para from Singhvi’s article (in Seminar):

“INDIA is a robust Third World country with most of the formal elements of good governance: a pluralist democracy, a market economy, a developmental state, a functioning civil society, institutions of free association, and acknowledgement, at least in law, that transparency and information are the gateways to accountability. Yet, according to the Berlin-based NGO, Transparency International, it enjoys the dubious distinction of being bracketed along with China and Indonesia as one of the world’s most corrupt nations. This means that just under half the entire world’s population has to contend with, and fear, levels of corruption which distort all the items on the governance checklist.”

 

Senior advocate and Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi talks about his education experience at India’s and the world’s top educational institutions and explains how tough it is to become a senior counsel, despite having a famous father.

On the subject of being the son of a famous lawyer, senior advocate and Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that it is not correct to say that one is born with a silver spoon and progresses through a platinum system. “It clearly gives you a push and a backup of infrastructure, with a library and a certain amount of resources. But this is a very unforgiving profession and very early on, if you do not work hard enough and if you are not able to prove yourself in a few cases, the system rejects you. The initial push is only like a rebuttable presumption in your favour. It is up to you to see that it is not rebutted.”

Talking to Rainmaker, he said that he never felt a direct attraction to law even till his days of doing an undergraduate in economics. “The omnipresent sights and sounds of law if you are from a family of lawyers makes a difference.”

“I did my schooling in St. Columba’s and did very well. I used to joke that academically everything has been downhill since then because I stood first in India. Even though during those days, law was distant in my mind, I saw my father getting dressed and going to court, I had the books of law all around me and my grandfather was a lawyer, so it does make a difference. However, there was absolutely no pressure in my case to enter the profession. In fact, there was a kind of anti-pressure. It happens by a process of elimination.”

“You think at times that you will not do what your father is doing and you examine other options. And it is the same with my two sons, I have scrupulously avoided pushing them into the profession but by a process of elimination, one is a lawyer and the other is studying law.”

Abhishek Manu Singhvi also described his study of law as having possessed a “peculiar trajectory”. “While I was doing my BA in Economics from St. Stephens, I got admission into Trinity College in Cambridge. But during the gap before the term started there, I also joined the Law Faculty of Delhi for about two months but went straight from there to Trinity, where I stayed on and completed my undregrad and my PhD and came back after six and half-odd years.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi also said that while being a good student, he was a complete introvert at school and retained some of that even in vibrant St. Stephens. It was only when he went to Cambridge, partly for survival in the strange context and climate, that he became more confident and extroverted.