[KNOW THE LAWYER] Fearless Maestro of PILs, Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan’s Tryst with Threats

Whenever public interest litigations are discussed in the judicial system, the name of Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan will definitely come up. During many decades of advocacy, Prashant Bhushan has worked to raise numerous issues related to public interest in the Supreme Court of the country. Viplav Awasthi, Editor of Legal Reporter, interacted with Prashant Bhushan as identified from Master on PIL analysis.

Prashant Bhushan is a leading lawyer of the country. He is practicing law and an active social activist. He was born in the year 1956 in a Lawyers family in Delhi. His father Mr. Shanti Bhushan was the former Law Minister of India. Prashant’s wife was a lawyer and they have 3 sons. The eldest son is preparing to join Oxford University.

Prashant studied mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras but left after a semester. He subsequently studied economics and philosophy at Princeton University but left and returned to India where he received a law degree from Allahabad University.

He is a well known social activist. In his career of 15 years he has worked on around 500 Public Interest Litigations. His first important case was the ‘Doon valley case’ where the illegal mining was creating an environment hazard. He then filed a PIL in the Bhopal gas tragedy and the Narmada case also. He also investigated the ‘bofors case’. He was the Delhi president of the people’s Union for Civil Liberties, a human rights organization. He is a strong supporter of clean Judiciary. He along with Arvind Kejriwal, was involved in the Anna Hazare-led anti corruption movement in India, but later fell out with him and been expelled from AAP party.