Senior Advocate Satvik Varma institutes Soli J Sorabjee Endowment Award and Scholarship at JGLS

Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) has announced the establishment of the Soli J Sorabjee Endowment Award & Scholarship to honour the memory of the renowned jurist and former Attorney General for India. .The Award and Scholarship has been instituted thanks to an endowment from Senior Advocate Satvik Varma and will be offered for 20 years. On making the endowment, Varma shared,“Mr. Sorabjee’s passing was a huge personal loss. Over the years, I had developed a very close personal relationship with him, which afforded an insight into the man as a lawyer and also his personal side. He was generous, affectionate, caring, compassionate and always ready to extend a helping hand. His values and passion have deeply inspired and influenced me. And his loss has left the legal community in India and abroad with a void. We felt the best way to continue his deep commitment to Human Rights was by instituting an extended Scholarship and Award in his memory.”It will be awarded annually to a deserving student in the field of Human Rights Law & Theory, offered as part of the undergraduate programme at the JGLS. With a view to carrying forward Sorabjee's commitment to human rights, the award will be declared on his birth anniversary, March 9 of every year..Sorabjee was a champion of the right to freedom of speech and expression, and defended the same in many landmark cases, including Kesavananda Bharti and SR Bommai before the Supreme Court of India. To Sorabjee, human rights are the conscience of the Constitution, and an independent judiciary, its conscience keeper. Therefore, the Scholarship and Award stands reminiscent of Sorabjee’s achievements and his contributions to human rights advocacy in all its forms..Announcing the Award, Founding Vice-Chancellor of OP Jindal Global University, Prof (Dr) C Raj Kumar said,“The purpose of the scholarship is to promote academic excellence, research, integrity and diversity by recognizing the outstanding academic achievement of a student in course on human rights. We are grateful to Mr. Satvik Varma for partnering with OP Jindal Global University for instituting this award in the name of Mr. Soli J Sorabjee. Mr. Satvik Varma, himself a distinguished graduate of Harvard Law School and also qualified to practice internationally, recognises the importance of quality legal education that JGLS provides its students. As someone invested in the legal system, Mr. Varma feels it his duty to help the future generation of lawyers and consequently this Scholarship and Award bridges Mr. Varma’s commitment towards nurturing law students and carrying forward the name and legacy of one of India’s leading legal luminaries. We thank him for this generous act.".In response to the establishment of the Award and Scholarship, the celebrated jurist’s family welcomed the initiative and said that it was a great way to remember and celebrate him and perpetuate his memory. The family shared a message they wished to convey to the students at JGLS: Tread Ye the Path of Justice and Equity in All Things; a quote from the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the central book of the Baháʼí Faith which deeply signifies the Baháʼí perspectives of justice.