———S. A. Hemanth—————-
New Delhi, February 1: Shanti Bhushan, the most celebrated lawyer who passed away in New Delhi yesterday, was instrumental in getting a judicial verdict against Indira Gandhi in Allahabad High Court way back in 1975.
While Raj Narain had filed an electoral petition accusing Indira Gandhi of adopting corrupt means in the 1972 Lok Sabha elections, it was Shanti Bhushan who argued effectively for three long years.
Shanti Bhushan’s determined fight against Indira Gandhi yielded desired result when Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of Allhabad High Court declared Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractice.
The Opposition parties under the leadership of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan launched a nation-wide campaign demanding Indira Gandhi’s resignation following Allahabad high court verdict
Ideally, Indira Gandhi ought to have resigned from her post of the Prime Minister. However, she sought to overlook the judicial verdict and instead imposed the draconian emergency in the intervening night of 25 – 26 June 1975.
That led to to arrest of thousands of Opposition party leaders and workers.
Shanti Bhushan sought to file a petition in the Supreme Court against the emergency but before he could initiate the process he was arrested in Delhi.
When the emergency ended in January 1977 and elections declared, the Janata Party came to power with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister.
Shanti Bhushan was chosen to become the Law Minister while Raj Narain was made the health minister.
In his capacity as the country’s law minister, Shanti Bhushan moved 42nd amendment of the Constirution that repealed many of the draconian laws that were brought in during the emergency by Indira Gandhi.
But the biggest and most significant amendment that was brought was to change the reason for declaring emergency from “internal conflict to armed rebellion”
According to S. Suresh Kumar, former minister and a MISA detenue during the emergency, the phrase internal conflict was too vague a word and gave lot of scope for ‘people with dictatorial mindset’ to interpret any situation and declare emergency.
“In order to prevent the misuse of the emergency provisions of the Statute, it was decided to make armed rebellion as the reason to declare emergency. Shanti Bhushan effectively piloted the Constitution Amendment Bill ” Suresh Kumar ecplained.
Shanti Bhushan and his lawyer son Prashanth Bhushan had identified themselves with the AAP but Shanti Bhushan distanced himself on the ‘matters of principles’
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