Shanti Bhushan (born 11 November 1925) is an Indian politician and lawyer. He served as the Law Minister of India holding office at the Ministry of Law and Justice from 1977 to 1979 in the

Morarji Desai Ministry The premiership of Morarji Desai extended from 24 March 1977 to 15 July 1979. In the 1977 Indian general election Morarji Desai led the Janata Party to victory against the Congress party. Upon taking office, Morarji Desai became the first India ...

. He is a senior advocate of the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

. He, along with his son Prashant Bhushan, was featured at 74th position in a list of the most powerful Indians published by ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...

'' in 2009.

Political career

Bhushan was an active member of the Congress (O) party and later the

Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nati ...

. He was a member of the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

from 14 July 1977 to 2 April 1980 and held office of Union Law Minister in the Morarji Desai ministry from 1977 to 1979. As the Law minister, he introduced Forty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of India, which repealed many provisions of

Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India The 42nd amendment, officially known as The Constitution (Forty-second amendment) Act, 1976, was enacted during the Emergency (25 June 1975 – 21 March 1977) by the Indian National Congress government headed by Indira Gandhi. Most provisions o ...

passed by the

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 and was al ...

ministry.
He joined the

Bhartiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mo ...

in 1980. In 1986, he resigned from BJP after the party acted against his advice over an election petition. He became a founding member of the

Aam Aadmi Party The Aam Aadmi Party (; AAP) is a List of political parties in India, political party in India, as one of the national political parties. The AAP was founded in November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal and his then-companions following the 2011 Indian ...

after its formal launch on 26 November 2012.

Prominent cases and clients

* Bhushan represented Raj Narain in a case against Indira Gandhi, the then

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...

. Justice

Jagmohan Lal Sinha Jagmohanlal Sinha (12 May 1920 – 20 March 2008) was an Indian judge who served in the Allahabad High Court. He is best known for his 1975 ruling in the '' State of Uttar Pradesh v. Raj Narain'' lawsuit in which he invalidated the election of ...

judged Indira Gandhi guilty and declared her election to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

void. The decision resulted in widespread political protests and ultimately resulted in the declaration of a

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

in India. * In 1994, he appeared for two of the defendants accused of participating in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case. * In 2002, he appeared as a counsel for Arundhati Roy in a contempt case against her in the

. * Bhushan represented Shaukat Hussain in 2008 for an appeal against his 10-year conviction for his role in the

2001 Indian Parliament attack The 2001 Indian Parliament attack was a terrorist attack on the Parliament of India in New Delhi, India on 13 December 2001. The perpetrators belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) - two Pakistan-raised terrorist organisa ...

. * Bhushan appeared as senior counsel for Transparency International in the Provident Fund scandal case of

Ghaziabad Ghaziabad () is a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and a part of Delhi NCR. It is the administrative headquarters of Ghaziabad district and is the largest city in western Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 1,729,000. Ghaziabad Mu ...

, which allegedly involved several judges of the Indian judiciary. The bench abandoned the hearing after deeming his remarks as contemptuous and termed his behavior as that of a street urchin. * Shanti Bhushan was the counsel for the former Prime Minister of India

H. D. Deve Gowda Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda (; born 18 May 1933 in) is an Indian politician from the state of Karnataka. He served as the 11th prime minister of India from 1 June 1996 to 21 April 1997. He was previously the 14th Chief Minister of Karn ...

in a petition related to allocation of land for Bangalore - Mysore Infrastructure Corridor. * He has represented

Rajendra Singh Lodha Rajendra Singh Lodha (died 3 October 2008), popularly known as R. S. Lodha, was an Indian chartered accountant and the chairman of the Birla Corporation. Lodha became co-chairman of the Birla Corporation in 2001. In July 2004, Priyamvada Bir ...

regarding the assets of

Birla Corporation Birla Corporation Limited is an Indian-based flagship company of the M P Birla group of companies, founded by Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla in the late 1910s and carried on by Madhav Prasad Birla. In the 1890s, Birla Corporation was a jute manufact ...

. * He represented

V.S. Achuthanandan Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan (born 20 October 1923) is an Indian Communist politician who was the Chief Minister of Kerala from 2006 to 2011. At 82, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office. He served as the chairman of Adm ...

in the Supreme Court in the Idamalayar Dam corruption case against UDF leader R.Balakrishna Pillai and others. The bench awarded rigorous imprisonment for one year with fine of Rs. 10,000/- each to the accused persons.

Activism

In the late 1980s Shanti Bhushan was one of the founders of the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, a

Non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

that conducts litigation on matters of public interest. The first president was Justice

V. M. Tarkunde Vithal Mahadeo Tarkunde (3 July 1909 in Saswad – 22 March 2004 in Delhi), was a prominent Indian lawyer, civil rights activist, and humanist leader and has been referred to as the "Father of the Civil Liberties movement" in India and a former j ...

, who was also the founder of the People's Union for Civil Liberties. Other founder members were senior advocates including

Fali Sam Nariman Fali Sam Nariman (born 10 January 1929) is an Indian jurist. He is the senior advocate to the Supreme Court of India since 1971 and was the President of the Bar Association of India from 1991 to 2010. Nariman is an internationally recognised jur ...

, Anil Divan, Rajinder Sachar and

Colin Gonsalves Colin Gonsalves is a designated Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India and the founder of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN). He specializes in human rights protection, labour law and public interest law. He has been awarded Right Livelih ...

. Shanti Bhushan, along with his son Prashant Bhushan has been involved in pressing for accountability in the Indian Judiciary by setting up Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Judicial Reform (CJAR). The campaign has been responsible for action against the judicial misconduct of Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal and for the declaration of assets by the judges. The campaign had also protested against the actions and appointments of Justice S. Ashok Kumar, Madan Mohan Punchhi,

Soumitra Sen Soumitra Sen is a former judge of the Calcutta High Court. He was the first judge in independent India whose removal motion was passed in Rajya Sabha for misappropriation of funds. History He was born on 22 January 1958. He passed the High Sch ...

and Ashwini Kumar Mata. In December 2009 the Committee on Judicial Accountability stated that it considered that recommendations for judicial appointments should only be made after a public debate, including review by members of the bar of the affected high courts. This statement was made in relation to controversy about the appointments of justices C. K. Prasad and P. D. Dinakaran. The statement was signed by Ram Jethmalani, Shanti Bhushan,

, Anil B. Divan, Kamini Jaiswal and Prashant Bhushan. The father-son duo are currently facing charges for

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...

in Supreme Court of India for their statement about corruption in higher judiciary - specifically, about the corruption of former Chief Justices of the Supreme Court. During a hearing on the running case for contempt of court in November 2010, Shanti Bhushan went on to say, "The question of apology does not arise. I am prepared to go to jail." Shanti Bhushan was a prominent member of the core committee of India Against Corruption. The first Lokpal Bill was passed in the 4th Lok Sabha in 1969, but did not pass through the Rajya Sabha. Shanti Bhushan was a member of the Joint Drafting Committee for the Jan Lokpal Bill, constituted by the Government of India, representing the Civil Society.

Works

* ''Courting Destiny: A Memoir'' (2008)

References

External links