Prashant Bhushan, a prominent Public Interest and Civil Rights Lawyer at the Supreme Court of India and is one of the founding members of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who is making the news in this pandemic times apart from CBI and ED’s development in the case of the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
Prashant Bhushan born on 15th October 1956 is the oldest son of former Law Minister, Shanti Bhusan. Shanti Bhushan was the law minister in Morarji Desai’s government. When the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi’s case of the election was being heard, he had a chance to attend the session as his father was the lawyer for the petitioner, Raj Narain. Inspired by the high profile case, he wrote his first book “The Case That Shook India” in 1978 that time he was just a student. His second book was launched in the year 1990 which was on the Bofors scandal, title of the book is “Bofors, the Selling of a Nation”.
He had joined IIT-Madras but left it after one semester and decided to pursue a two-year BSc programme with Philosophy, Economics and Political Science. Later on, he decided to pursue higher studies in Philosophy for which he went to Princeton University but didn’t complete it and returned to India. After which he started his career as a lawyer in 1983. Bhushan is well known with the various PILs filed by him against corruption and human rights. Since the year 1998, he has been actively involved in judicial accountability in the apex court. During that time along with his father and a few other lawyers formed the Committee on Judicial Accountability to ensure transparency in the higher judiciary. The Committee successfully prepared a charge sheet to impeach Justice MM Punchhi and were able to obtain signatures of 25 Rajya Sabha MPs. But the case was no longer active because Justice Punchhi was appointed CJI. He was successful in impeachment motion in parliament against Justice PD Dinakaran, which subsequently led to his resignation in 2011.
Despite his father being a cabinet member in the Morarji Desai government, he kept himself away from politics until 2012. In 2012 he was one of the founding members of Aam Aadmi Party.
500 PILs
Till date, Mr Bhusan has filled 500 PILs over three decades of him as a lawyer of which quite a few are noticeable. It was in the year 1983 when a well-known environment activist Vandana Shiva approached him for the Doon Valley mining case. This was his first PIL.
A year later, he fought for the victims of Anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, he joined the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). Since this year, Bhushan has tried to always reach out and take up the cases of the poor and marginalised, pro bono. In 1988, it was for the first time, the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy for compensation reached the Supreme Court, and Bhushan was there to offer his service. His PILs were a pain for the UPA government.
PILs such as on the Radia tapes, Coalgate scam, 2G Spectrum scam, the appointment of PJ Thomas as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner and against the ambitious nuclear programme of Dr Manmohan Singh government seeking to fix accountability of the suppliers for the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu.
Supreme Court vs Bhushan
While Bhushan being one of the leading lawyers in India, he has also been one of the lawyers to face the heat of the judiciary. The noted advocate was held guilty of contempt of court on August 14 relating to the tweets made by him against the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and past four CJI’s. Contempt of Court means the act by a person who does not follow or obey an order that is passed by the honourable court or in other words, the lack of respect shown for a judge or a court. The Apex Court found that the tweets made by Bhushan were based on distorted facts and amounted to a scurrilous and malicious attack on the SC and also destabilizes the functioning of the judiciary. The noted lawyer was then found guilty and sentenced to a fine of Rs.1, defaulting which Bhushan has to face imprisonment of three months and a practice ban for three years. The decision was pronounced by a five-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.
Justice Mishra also highlighted that while the matter was sub judice, Bhushan shared his statements given to the court in media, gave interviews which also added to bring down the dignity of the court. Before sentencing Bhushan in the immediate case, the court gave him three chances to apologise to the honourable court for causing its contempt but Bhushan through his statements and views stood by his tweets and did not ask for mercy from the court. Bhushan stated that apologising would mean a “contempt of his conscience” as they were solely based on bona fide intentions and the same shall be seen as constructive criticism of the court so that it does not drift away from its duties in being the custodian of the constitution and people’s rights. There is already one more contempt proceeding going on against Bhushan before the same bench for his 2009 interview wherein he said half of the past 16 CJI’s are corrupt.
Authors’ Take
The decision to convict one of the leading human rights lawyers in India for his tweets could have a strong dissatisfaction on the exercise of the fundamental right to free speech and expression. To this, the authors feel that the contempt decision might be overboard keeping in mind the fundamental rights and criminal contempt to a bare minimum. While certain limitations do exist on the right to freedom of speech and expression, the discussions involving the role of the judiciary, access to justice and democracy must be given widest possible scope in terms of exercising that freedom.
Note: This article was co-written by Muskaan Vijay and me for The Economic Transcript, Mithibai Economic Forum, Mithibai College.