Vocal about the issue of corruption and active in the legal profession till only recently, former union law minister Shanti Bhushan appeared in several cases of public importance. The eminent jurist, who died of a brief illness on Tuesday at the age of 97, served as the law minister in the Morarji Desai cabinet from 1977 to 1979.
A champion of PILs (public interest litigation), Shanti Bhushan had only recently argued on a such a plea in the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored probe into the Rafale fighter jets deal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled his death remembering him as “speaking for the underprivileged”.
But his legacy was made everlasting by his association with the famous case that triggered a chain of events leading to the Emergency in 1975 – he successfully represented petitioner Raj Narain in the Allahabad High Court in a case that set aside the election of then prime minister Indira Gandhi for committing electoral malpractices.
In the historic case, the high court in June 1975 had disqualified Gandhi for a period of six years from contesting elections. Narain, freedom fighter and politician, had unsuccessfully contested the 1971 Lok Sabha elections from Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh against Gandhi.
Founding member of two prominent parties
In 1980, Bhushan was one of the founding members of the BJP. Later in November 2012, riding on the wave of the anti-corruption movement, he also became a founding member of the Aam Aadmi Party along with his equally prominent elder son Prashant Bhushan. But his association with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party was brief.
Bhushan was an active member of the Congress, a Rajya Sabha MP (July 1977 to April 1980) and was also in the BJP for six years (1980 to 1986), during his political career. The legendary advocate’s death was described by his son Prashant Bhushan as being “the end of an era”, as per a report published by The Indian Express.
Born in 1925, Bhushan was one of the founders of the NGO called the Centre for Public Interest Litigation. Both his sons, Prashant and Jayant, are leading lawyers.
Contempt case against him
Along with his son Prashant, Shanti Bhushan was facing charges for contempt of court in the SC. The father-son duo had made a statement about corruption in the higher judiciary – more specifically, about the corruption of former Chief Justices.
In 2010, during the hearing of the contempt case against him, he refused to apologise and even said he was “prepared to go to jail”. He said there was no question of an apology and stuck to his sensational allegations.
Here are some of the well-known cases featuring the senior lawyer:
- Appeared for two of the defendants accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case in 1994
- Appeared as a counsel for Arundhati Roy in a contempt case against her in the Supreme Court in 2002
- Represented Shaukat Hussain for an appeal against his 10-year conviction in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack in 2008
- Appeared as senior counsel for Transparency International in the Provident Fund scandal case of Ghaziabad, which allegedly involved several judges of the Indian judiciary. Deeming his remarks as contemptuous, the bench likened his behaviour to that of a “street urchin” in this case
- Bhushan was the counsel for the former PM HD Deve Gowda in a land allocation case related to the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor.
(With PTI inputs)
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