Senior advocate Shanmugasundaram appointed Advocate General of Tamil Nadu

He succeeds Mr Vijay Narayan, who resigned from the post soon after the DMK government headed by its Chief M K Stalin assumed office following the party's victory in the Assembly elections.

 A GO issued by Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu said ''in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 165(1) of the Constitution, Governor Banwarilal Purohit hereby  appoints Mr Shanmugasundaram as the Advocate General of Tamil Nadu, from the date of his taking charge vice Vijay Narayan, resigned.''

Mr Shanmugasundaram, a former Rajya Sabha MP from 2002 to 2008, has 44 years of experience in the Bar and has been a designated senior counsel for the
last 20 years.

He had also been the State Public Prosecutor from 1996 to 2001.

An experienced advocate, he studied the developments in criminal law in Britain and attended court works at the Old Bailey Central London Criminal Courts, Croydon Crown Court and Royal Courts of Justice, London.

He also gained work experience at the Crown Prosecution Department at Manchester, studied the investigation procedures adopted there and observed the working system of legal aid and probation procedures in Great Britain.

He was appointed as a counsel for Tamil Nadu before the Justice Jain Commission of Inquiry formed to probe the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. 

The Madras High Court had also appointed him as an amicus curiae in the London hotel case, against former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, considering the public importance and sensitive nature of the case.

During his tenure as a Member of Parliament, he was part of the Indian delegation to the United Nations that took part in the 59th General Assembly in October 2004.