Eminent jurist Jethmalani dead

New Delhi: Ram Jethmalani, one of India's eminent lawyers and a former Union minister, died on Sunday morning at his home in Delhi. He was 95. Jethmalani had not been keeping well for the last few months, his son Mahesh said. The legal veteran died at 7:45 am.

His last rites were performed this evening at 5.30 pm at the Lodhi road crematorium in Delhi. Union Law Minister RS Prasad and many other prominent people paid tributes to the lawyer at the cremation.

A six-time Rajya Sabha member, Ram Jethmalani served as a Union minister in the United Front and the BJP-led NDA governments. In 2016, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha on an RJD ticket.

The seasoned lawyer was elected to both the Houses of Parliament on the BJP ticket several times but he had a tumultuous relationship with the party. He was a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Cabinet in 1998 and then again in October 1999. However, he quit the Vajpayee government in July 2000.

In 2004, he contested against former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from Lucknow.

A legal fight between Ram Jethmalani and the BJP ended in 2018 - five years after he was expelled from the party for "breach of discipline" - after a mutual agreement.

The noted lawyer was involved in a number of high-profile cases and had defended several top politicians such as LK Advani, Lalu Prasad Yadav, J Jayalalithaa and Arvind Kejriwal.

Born in Sindh, which is now in Pakistan, on September 14, 1923, Jethmalani had obtained a law degree when he was just 17 and started practising law in Karachi until Partition, says his official website. "The partition led him to move to Bombay as a refugee and he began his life afresh with his family," it says.

In 2010, he was elected as the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. One of the highest-paid lawyers, he announced his retirement from over seven-decade-long career as an advocate in 2017. He died six days before his 96th birthday.