Shanti Bhushan was an anti-corruption advocate, a champion of public interest litigation, which nullified the election of Indira Gandhi

Outspoken on the issue of corruption and active in the legal profession till recently, former Union Law Minister Shanti Bhushan appeared in several cases of public importance. The eminent jurist, who died at the age of 97 on Tuesday after a brief illness, served as Law Minister in the Morarji Desai cabinet from 1977 to 1979.

Shanti Bhushan, a public interest litigation advocate, recently argued in the Supreme Court a petition seeking a court-monitored probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi mourned his death, remembering him as “speaking up for the underprivileged”.

But his legacy was made everlasting by his association with the famous case that triggered a chain of events that led to the Emergency in 1975 – he successfully represented petitioner Rajnarayan in the Allahabad High Court, which challenged then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s decision. The election was cancelled. Gandhi for committing electoral malpractices

Founding member of two major parties

In 1980, Bhushan was one of the founding members of the BJP. Later in November 2012, riding 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 also served in the BJP for six years (1980 to 1986) during his political career. According to a report published by , the great advocate’s death was described by his son Prashant Bhushan as “the end of an era”. The Indian Express,

Born in 1925, Bhushan was one of the founders of the NGO Center for Public Interest Litigation. Both his sons, Prashant and Jayant, are prominent lawyers.

Some of the famous cases featuring the senior advocate are as follows:

1. Two of the accused appeared for the defendants in the 1993 Mumbai bombings case in 1994
2. Appeared as Arundhati Roy’s counsel in a contempt case against her in the Supreme Court in 2002
3. Represented Shaukat Hussain for his appeal against his 10-year sentence in the Indian Parliament attack in 2001 and 2008
4. Appeared as Senior Counsel for Transparency International in the Ghaziabad Provident Fund scam case in which several judges of the Indian Judiciary were allegedly involved. Taking his remarks to be contemptuous, the bench compared his behavior to that of a “road urinating” in the matter.
5. Bhushan was the counsel for former PM HD Deve Gowda in the land allotment case related to the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor.

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