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Home , Arun Jaitley

Arun Jaitley Finance Minister

Arun Jaitley, currently Union Minister of Finance, Corporate Affairs & Defence. Government of India is a distinguished lawyer and prominent leader of the Bharatiya . He is also the Leader of the House in . He was also been Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting from November 10, 2014 to July 5, 2016. In his prolific career as a lawyer and a political leader, he has held many important positions and made significant contributions in the areas of economic liberalisation, judicial reforms, electoral reforms and progressive social & economic legislations.

Between October 1999 – July 2002 and January 2003- February 2004, Shri Jaitley was Minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government at the Centre and held charge of the Ministries of Information and Broadcasting; Disinvestment; Law, Justice and Company Affairs; Shipping; and Commerce & Industry. He has been a member of the BJP National Executive since 1991 and held the posts of its General Secretary and Spokesperson.

As one of the pioneers of economic reforms in the country during his tenure as Minister of various portfolios during the earlier NDA government, he has continued further the process of economic liberalization and has contributed significantly by bringing in important financial and corporate legislations in the past two years as Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, with a keen eye on ushering in ease of doing business in the country. In the past few years he has pushed for several reforms in the Indian economy, which include opening up of the economy, easening the system of doing business, eliminating discretions, rationalizing subsidies, rationalizing both direct and indirect taxation systems, etc. In the past few months, some major reforms such as the constitution of the Monetary Policy Committee, the enactment of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the law relating to the Unique Identity for all residents and the Constitution Amendment relating to the Goods and Service Taxes has been legislated as a result of his efforts.

As a Minister in the then NDA Government, he pioneered the disinvestment programme in the country, helped usher in the new telecom policy, and brought about several legislative and judicial reforms. The Fast Track Courts together with the reforms in the Civil Procedure Code and the Criminal Procedure Code aimed at reduction of pendency of cases and faster disposal of cases were the highlights of his tenure as Law Minister. He also piloted comprehensive Company Law reforms and the law on Competition to bring the corporate legal framework in tune with the liberalisation and globalisation. On the personal law side, important changes were introduced in the law on divorce and compensation and the landmark law on domestic violence was also enacted following his efforts. The 84th Constitutional amendment on Delimitation of Constituencies and the 91st Constitutional amendment on capping the size of the Council of Ministers and banning the legislators who defect from holding any Ministerial position were enacted during his time. The first comprehensive law against Terrorism i.e. POTA was passed in the Parliament for countering terrorism. He steered the Indian Negotiations at the WTO during the challenging days in the run-up to the crucial Ministerial meeting at Cancun in 2003. Under his leadership, significant breakthrough was achieved by the Indian negotiators by forging the new alliance of G-20 which effectively counter-balanced the negotiations and brought the agenda of the developing world to the centre stage.

Arun Jaitley was born on , 1952 and completed his schooling from St. Xavier School, New . He graduated in Commerce from the Sri Ram College of Commerce, and obtained his LL.B from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi in 1977. He was designated as Senior Advocate in 1989.