Cleaning up India’s courts

Civil liberties lawyer Prashant Bhushan shares his controversial views on judicial accountability and explains why he believes the government is reluctant to tackle corruption

Interview and photographs by Raghavendra Verma

Prashant Bhushan, a 54-year-old civil liberties lawyer, has campaigned tirelessly to clean up India’s judiciary. His allegations of corruption against many of the country’s former chief justices have led to a charge of contempt of court, for which he may face a prison sentence.

Sitting in his third-floor chambers, overlooking the Supreme Court in New Delhi, he spoke exclusively to India Business Law Journal.

India Business Law Journal (IBLJ): According to a 2006 Transparency International report, the judiciary in India is the second most corrupt institution after the police. You have argued that there is a serious and alarming state of corruption in the higher judiciary. How bad is the situation, particularly with regard to corporate cases?

Bhushan: Today a new breed of “broker-fixer” lawyers has sprouted in the country. One example of that is Ankur Chawla – son of [noted journalist] Prabhu Chawla – who has recently been charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation for bribing the chairman of the Company Law Board [in a 2009 case relating to two feuding factions of a media house]. His clients include most major Indian corporate houses and multinational corporations. He is the main briefing counsel of Harish Salve, who is supposed to be the top corporate lawyer of this country. In fact, in the Reliance case [between the two Ambani brothers over the price of natural gas from Reliance Industries’ Krishna Godavari basin] their original lawyer was replaced to bring Chawla in as an advocate in the Supreme Court and he obviously succeeded in winning the case. So, unfortunately, this suggests that in major corporate cases involving huge financial stakes you need to fix the judges and you need to find the lawyers who can do that.