Minister of Law and Justice

Minister of Law and Justice Kaanoon aur Nyaay Mantrī
Emblem of India
Incumbent Kiren Rijiju since 7 July 2021
Ministry of Law and Justice
Style	The Honourable
Nominator	Prime Minister
Appointer	President (on the advice of the Prime Minister)
Inaugural holder	Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
Formation	15 August 1947

The Minister of Law and Justice is the head of the Ministry of Law and Justice and one of the cabinet ministers of the Government of India. The first Law and Justice minister of independent India was B. R. Ambedkar, who served in first Nehru ministry during 1947–52. Kiren Rijiju is the current Law and Justice minister of India.

List of Law & Justice Ministers

No.	Portrait	Name	Term of office			Party		Prime Minister
1		B. R. Ambedkar	15 August 1947	11 October 1951	4 years, 57 days	Indian National Congress		Jawaharlal Nehru
2		Kailash Nath Katju	5 November 1951	13 May 1952	190 days
3		Charu Chandra Biswas	13 May 1952	17 April 1957	4 years, 339 days
4		Ashoke Kumar Sen	12 May 1957	24 January 1966	8 years, 257 days
								Lal Bahadur Shastri
5		Gopal Swarup Pathak	24 January 1966	13 March 1967	1 year, 48 days			Indira Gandhi
6	File:PanampillyGovindaMenon.jpg	Panampilly Govinda Menon	13 March 1967	23 May 1970	3 years, 71 days
7		Kengal Hanumanthaiah	26 June 1970	18 March 1971	265 days
8		H. R. Gokhale	18 March 1971	24 March 1977	6 years, 6 days
9		Shanti Bhushan	26 March 1977	28 July 1979	2 years, 124 days	Janata Party		Morarji Desai
10		Hans Raj Khanna	30 July 1979	3 August 1979	4 days	Janata Party (Secular)		Charan Singh
11		S. N. Kacker	3 August 1979	14 January 1980	164 days
12		P. Shiv Shankar	14 January 1980	15 January 1982	2 years, 1 day	Indian National Congress		Indira Gandhi
13		Jagannath Kaushal	15 January 1982	31 December 1984	2 years, 351 days
								Rajiv Gandhi
(4)		Ashoke Kumar Sen	31 December 1984	31 March 1987	2 years, 90 days (total 10 years, 347 days)
(12)		P. Shiv Shankar	25 July 1987	14 February 1988	204 days (total 2 years, 205 days)
14		Bindeshwari Dubey	14 February 1988	26 June 1988	132 days
15		B. Shankaranand	25 June 1988	2 December 1989	1 year, 160 days
16		Dinesh Goswami	6 December 1989	10 November 1990	339 days	Asom Gana Parishad		V. P. Singh
17		Subramanian Swamy	21 November 1990	21 June 1991	212 days	Janata Party		Chandra Shekhar
18		Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy	21 June 1991	9 October 1992	1 year, 110 days	Indian National Congress		P. V. Narasimha Rao
19		P. V. Narasimha Rao	9 October 1992	16 May 1996	3 years, 220 days
20		Ram Jethmalani	16 May 1996	1 June 1996	16 days	Independent		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
21		P Chidambaram	1 June 1996	29 June 1996	28 days	Tamil Maanila Congress		H. D. Dewe Gowda
22		Ramakant Khalap (Independent Charge)	29 June 1996	19 March 1998	1 year, 263 days	Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party
								Inder Kumar Gujral
23		M. Thambidurai	19 March 1998	8 April 1999	1 year, 20 days	All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
24		P R Kumaramangalam	9 April 1999	8 June 1999	60 days	Bharatiya Janata Party
(20)		Ram Jethmalani	8 June 1999	23 July 2000	1 year, 45 days (total 1 year, 61 days)	Independent
25		Arun Jaitley (Independent Charge till 7 November 2000)	24 July 2000	1 July 2002	1 year, 342 days	Bharatiya Janata Party
26		Jana Krishnamurthy	1 July 2002	29 January 2003	212 days
(25)		Arun Jaitley	29 January 2003	22 May 2004	1 year, 114 days (total 3 years, 91 days)
27		H. R. Bhardwaj	23 May 2004	22 May 2009	4 years, 364 days	Indian National Congress		Manmohan Singh
28		Veerappa Moily	28 May 2009	12 July 2011	2 years, 45 days
29		Salman Khurshid	12 July 2011	28 October 2012	1 year, 108 days
30		Ashwani Kumar	28 October 2012	11 May 2013	195 days
31		Kapil Sibal	11 May 2013	26 May 2014	1 year, 15 days
32		Ravi Shankar Prasad	26 May 2014	9 November 2014	167 days	Bharatiya Janata Party		Narendra Modi
33		D. V. Sadananda Gowda	9 November 2014	5 July 2016	1 year, 239 days
(32)		Ravi Shankar Prasad	5 July 2016	7 July 2021	5 years, 2 days (total 5 years, 169 days)
34		Kiren Rijiju	7 July 2021	Incumbent	5 years, 36 days

List of Ministers of State

Ministers of State For Law and Justice

Minister of state	Portrait	Political party		Term		Days
P. P. Chaudhary		Bharatiya Janata Party		5 July 2016	30 May 2019	1059 days
S. P. Singh Baghel				7 July 2021	Incumbent	1862 days

External links

• Law & Justice Minister Ministry, Official website