India has two chief law officers with almost the same job description. One sits in the Constitution’s text. The other doesn’t.
1. The Advocate-General: A Constitutional Post
Every State’s top law officer, appointed by the Governor
Creation and appointment
Article 165 creates the office of Advocate-General for a State. The Governor appoints this officer.
Qualification and tenure
To become Advocate-General, a person must be qualified to be a High Court judge. This is the same bar the Constitution sets for the Attorney General of India, under Article 76.
The Advocate-General holds office during the pleasure of the Governor. There is no fixed term, and no removal procedure to follow. The Governor can end the appointment at any time.
Speaking rights and pay
Article 177 lets the Advocate-General attend and speak in either House of the State Legislature, and any of its committees. There is no vote attached to this right. This mirrors Article 88, which gives the Attorney General the same right in Parliament.
The Advocate-General’s salary isn’t fixed by the Constitution — the Governor decides it. This is unlike judges, whose pay is constitutionally protected from being reduced.
True or False: The Advocate-General for a State is appointed by the Governor, not the President.
Correct. Article 165 names the Governor as the appointing authority — the President appoints the Attorney General instead, under Article 76.
Actually, this is true. The Governor appoints the Advocate-General under Article 165; only the Attorney General is a Presidential appointment.
2. The Solicitor General: Not in the Constitution at All
Second-highest law officer, but with no constitutional standing
Rank and legal footing
The Solicitor General of India is the second-highest law officer in the country, ranked just below the Attorney General. Unlike the Attorney General, this post is not created by the Constitution. It exists only under executive rules and government resolutions.
The post isn’t just “not constitutional” — it isn’t statutory either, since no Act of Parliament created it. The Law Officers (Conditions of Service) Rules, 1987 exist under Article 309, which lets the executive make its own service rules. That’s a weaker legal footing than either a constitutional article or a parliamentary law.
History and tenure
C.K. Daphtary became India’s first Solicitor General on 28 January 1950. Tenure isn’t fixed either. The current Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, has held the post since October 2018. He was reappointed for a fresh three-year term from 1 July 2026. Each renewal is the government’s own choice, not a set constitutional term.
What it can’t do
Because the Solicitor General isn’t a constitutional post, it carries no Article 88-style right to address Parliament. Only the Attorney General has that privilege among India’s top law officers.
A full legal team, not just one person
The Attorney General rarely appears in routine litigation. The role is reserved for matters of the gravest constitutional importance, and for advising the government directly. The Solicitor General and Additional Solicitors General carry the real day-to-day load instead. They represent the Union Government in the Supreme Court and High Courts, whenever the government is a party or has a stake in the case.
- As of 2026, five Additional Solicitors General serve for the Supreme Court alone: Vikramjit Banerjee, K.M. Nataraj, Suryaprakash V. Raju, N. Venkataraman, and Aishwarya Bhati.
- Separate Additional Solicitors General are appointed for individual High Courts too — Chetan Sharma covers the Delhi High Court, for example.
The Constitution names only the advisor at the top. The team that actually argues most government cases sits entirely outside constitutional text.
3. Not One Category — A Spectrum of Independence
From judge-like protection to full government control
India’s “key functionaries” aren’t all the same. They sit on a scale, from more free of the government to less free. The Attorney General and Advocate-General are named in the Constitution. But they hold office only as long as the government wants them to. They are closer to advisors than to watchdogs.
Compare that to the CAG and the UPSC. Both have fixed terms. Both can only be removed the way judges are removed. This was built to keep them free from the government that appointed them. The Solicitor General sits outside the Constitution altogether. It is the most government-controlled of the major law officer posts. Government rules alone create it, staff it, and govern it.
- Fully insulated from the executive: CAG, UPSC.
- Constitutionally named but pleasure-tenure advisors: Attorney General, Advocate-General.
- Purely executive-created, no constitutional standing at all: Solicitor General.
True or False: The Solicitor General of India is a constitutional post, like the Attorney General.
Correct, this is false. The Solicitor General exists only under 1987 executive rules — the Constitution never mentions the post.
Actually, this is false. Only the Attorney General is a constitutional post; the Solicitor General rests entirely on executive rules.
When “at pleasure” becomes real
Think it through: West Bengal’s four Advocate-Generals
West Bengal shows what “at the Governor’s pleasure” looks like when politics turns rough. Four Advocate-Generals under one state government resigned mid-term, one after another. The most recent, Kishore Datta, resigned a single day after his party lost the state election, on 5 May 2026. It was a resignation timed almost to the hour of a change in political weather. In Punjab in 2021, the state’s own Congress chief publicly demanded the Advocate-General’s removal over a case dispute, and the government gave in within days. Neither Advocate-General broke any rule or was formally dismissed for misconduct. Both resignations show how a pleasure-tenure post can move whenever political winds shift, exactly as the bare constitutional text allows.
4. Exam Point of View
Exam Trap: The Governor appoints, not the President
- CDS-II 2019, Q49: does the President appoint the Advocate-General on the Governor’s recommendation, and do High Courts hold CPC-based “advisory” jurisdiction. Answer: neither statement is correct.
- Why: examiners keep testing the same mix-up between the Advocate-General (Governor’s own appointment, Article 165) and the Attorney General (President’s appointment, Article 76). Confusing the two is the whole trap.
- Answered on CDS-II 2019, Q49.
Exam Trap: The SGI’s “not constitutional” catch
- CDS-I 2023, Q92: which statement about the Solicitor General is NOT correct. Answer: calling it a constitutional post.
- Why: this is the single fact examiners return to again and again on this topic. Everything else about the SGI (rank, appointment, advisory role) sounds official enough to seem constitutional. It isn’t.
- Answered on CDS-I 2023, Q92.
Test Yourself
Practise on the Advocate-General and Solicitor General, then keep going with a random Polity question.
Question 1 of 1
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