New Delhi: Senior Advocate Aman Lekhi, who recently resigned from the post of Additional Solicitor General (ASG), is expected to resume his private practice. In an interview with Bar & Bench, Lekhi talked about a range of topics including some recent contentious issues. Asked why he resigned, he said, "My resignation was motivated by considerations which were completely subjective. As the position warrants, I am not required to justify my resignation. I have a feeling that if you are consumed by the post, at some point in time, you become very cavalier in your approach, and then the performance becomes very unedifying."
"If you reach a point where you feel that holding the post defeats the purpose of holding it, and that you may not be as effective as you want to be, then the right thing to do is to resign rather than compromise or have a trade-off, or continue with a feeling of deficiency about your performance," he said.
Talking about the independence of a law officer's legal opinion, he said "I have very strong convictions, and whatever I did, I chose to do on the terms which I thought were correct. I carried it on with my resignation too, because I felt that the time has come where it would be better if I demitted office."
On the Hijab controversy. he said, "I feel we have to see this entire controversy under freedom of speech, subject to reasonable restrictions. I will not frame the issue as one relating to freedom of religion, but as one relating to freedom of speech. When I put it as speech, I feel it will have better resonance than religion, because religion becomes a very emotive aspect and as soon as religion takes centre stage, polarisation becomes severe.