A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India from 2014 to 2019.

[8][9] Arun Jaitley was born on 28 December 1952 in Delhi into a Punjabi Brahmin family which migrated from Lahore during Partition of India.

[17] He was also active in civil rights movement and helped found PUCL Bulletin along with Satish Jha and Smitu Kothari.

He was then made the president of the youth wing of the BJP and the secretary of the Delhi Unit in 1980, a short time after joining the party.

[21][22][23][24] He was appointed Additional Solicitor General of India by the V. P. Singh government in 1989 and did the paperwork for the investigations into the Bofors scandal.

[20] He was appointed the Government of India's delegate to the United Nations General Assembly Session in June 1998 which approved the Declaration on Laws Relating to Drugs and Money Laundering.

[28] Given his political duties as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley stopped practising law in June 2009.

On 13 October 1999, after the Vajpayee Government of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance came to power, he was appointed Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge).

[20] On 23 July 2000 following the resignation of Ram Jethmalani as the Union Cabinet Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs, he took over his ministry as an additional charge.

[20] In November 2000 Jaitley was made a Cabinet Minister for the Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs and Shipping.

[19] With the defeat of the National Democratic Alliance in May 2004, Jaitley returned to his legal career and worked in the Supreme Court.

[38][39] Analysts cited Jaitley's "part-time" focus on defence as a simple continuation of the policies of the previous government.

[40] According to a WikiLeaks cable by Robert Blake, the Charge at the US Embassy, to his government, When raised on the question of Hindutva, Jaitley had argued that Hindu nationalism "will always be a talking point" for the BJP and characterised this as an opportunistic issue.

"[42] During the 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election, Arun Jaitley agreed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertions that the idea of reservations on the basis of religion is fraught with danger and was against giving reservations to Muslim Dalits and Christian Dalits as it might impact demography.

[54] Previously in September 2012, Jaitley had warned CBI on corruption cases involving political leaders from Gujarat.

[55] Arun Jaitley married Sangeeta, daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Girdhari Lal Dogra, on 24 May 1982.

[59] Jaitley had a series of health-related issues and underwent multiple surgeries leading into his deteriorating health and subsequent death in 2019.

[62] In February 2019, the media reported that Jaitley had been diagnosed with a rare form of soft-tissue sarcoma and was undergoing treatment in the US, although it was termed a "regular medical check-up".

[70] The Indian Cricket team wore black armbands for a day during the test match with the West Indies, to condole Jaitley's death.