JOIN USSenior counsel Ravivarma Kumar has been appointed the Advocate General by the State government. He will replace C H Vijayashankar.
Kumar, a native of Sira in Tumkur district, began his practice in 1975. Having studied law in Bangalore, he began his career under the legal expert, the late L G Havanur (Havanur later became Minister for Law in the Devaraj Urs government). His areas of specialisation are Constitutional law, social justice, human rights, PILs, legal literacy among others.
Kumar has appeared in over 30,000 cases in the High Court and the Supreme Court. As a government advocate of the land reforms cell, he championed the cause of tenants under the Karnataka Law Reforms Act, 1961, in over 8,000 cases.
In the Supreme Court, Kumar appeared in the case of Dr Ramdoss of the PMK versus Union of India, demanding caste census. In the Ashok Kumar Thakur case, he appeared in defence of 27 per cent reservation provided to the other backward classes in Central educational institutions. He also appeared in the Mandal case on reservation for backward classes and in defence of the Havanur report on backward classes.
In the High Court of Karnataka, his celebrated cases include prevention of the construction of a five-star hotel in the Nagarahole National Park, quo warranto against the then chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde and the arrack bottling case.
Kumar, known for his progressive thoughts and secular credentials, was appointed the first chairman of the Backward Classes Commission in 1997. He headed the Commission till 2000 and presented about 85 reports to the State government, which include the ones on reservation in private sector, reservation for couple and children in inter-caste and inter-religion marriages, the creamy layer policy to get the best talent from each caste/tribe, revision of the list of OBCs and caste enumeration in census.
He was also a faculty at the Havanur College of Law and a visiting professor at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and at the Department of Management Studies, Bangalore University.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Law Minister T B Jayachandra personally communicated to Kumar, about his appointment as Advocate General on Wednesday.