Shanti Bhushan has been in the legal limelight several times in the past. But last week, he stunned the nation by alleging that eight former chief justices of the Supreme Court were corrupt. If the charge had come from someone else, it would have been dubbed frivolous. But then, 85-year-old Bhushan isn’t just anyone. He must have had access to the personal records of the judges as Union law minister in 1977-79.
Bhushan shot to national fame when he felled former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in an election case, which eventually led to her calling a state of Emergency in 1975. Since then, he has joined and left three national political parties, preferring instead to concentrate on judicial accountability. And he — along with lawyer-son Prashant Bhushan — has been the bugbear of the judiciary for nearly three decades.
Bhushan’s application to join Prashant as a party in a contempt case against his son will be heard by the Supreme Court next month. The court slapped the contempt charge against Prashant for telling Tehelka magazine that the present chief justice should not have heard the Vedanta case while holding shares in the company. The father wants to show with evidence that some judges at the apex level had a soiled record.
Truth is a new defence in contempt cases; even otherwise, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Earlier, he had defended Arundhati Roy in a contempt case and lost. How far he will be successful this time around remains to be seen.
While most of his colleagues at the bar are reluctant to go public, former Supreme Court Judge V R Krishna Iyer has stated that the truth should come out as to whether Bhushan was resorting to bravado or that there were really delinquent chief justices.
Former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee has been quoted as saying that Bhushan’s application seeking contempt action against himself was nothing but “filial loyalty, an irresistible itch for martyrdom and ravages of old age.” The Delhi High Court Bar Association chief has also criticised the veteran lawyer.
The Supreme Court, which cannot express its view publicly due to protocol, has never faced such a mortifying situation. Whether it takes the application seriously or not, some dirt is bound to stick.