The bitter PIL: How Prashant Bhushan gives judiciary a headache

Prashant Bhushan, India’s Don Quixote on a perpetual run to uncover scandals, has been rattled by people he considers his biggest strength: The Judiciary.

A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices AK Sikri and R Banumathi has questioned credentials and authenticity of public interest litigations (PIL) Bhushan has been filing at regular intervals.

Worse, hours later, senior lawyer, Fali S Nariman - described by Bhushan as his partner in crusade - said he never vetted the genuineness of complaints filed by Bhushan as public interest litigation (PIL).

The double whammy has raised questions on the authenticity of PILs filed by Bhushan’s NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation. It is a serious charge, almost like questioning the veracity of Lord Krishna’s sermons in the epic battle of Kurukshetra.

After all, Bhushan, all these years, has projected himself as a no-nonsense lawyer, cracking - in the process - some of India’s biggest scandals ranging from coal to telecom to taped conversations of a powerful lobbyist with politicians and journalists. His last crusades have focused on Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries. To the masses, Bhushan has painted a picture that whatever the richest Indian has done is mired in corruption.

Probably tired of his nature of crying wolf almost every month, the country’s topmost judiciary asked him how serious was his investigation? How could there be a centre just to file PILs which operated from the office of a crusader advocate. The judges even said Bhushan’s Centre for Public Interest Litigation could be misused by vested interests to settle scores with corporate rivals and also for personal vendetta. Probably the judges were aware that filing frivolous PILs and RTIs is a business for many in India, operating on hefty fees and unreasonable demands.

Bhushan sought advice from the judges as to whether he should bolster his team of investigators, mentioning - in the process - what a fantabulous team he had. But then, a top member of the team discounted his claims, saying he never saw any of the papers that landed on Bhushan’s table and were described as scandals and corruption.

It was almost like cops saying they were not sanguine of their charges, investigative agencies calling themselves “caged parrots”.

The judges have reasons to be worried. Time and again, investigations conducted by cops across India and investigative agencies have fallen flat in the courtrooms, ostensibly because the probe had too many loopholes.

The biggest example was that of the much-hyped investigation in the spot-fixing scandal that gripped India in 2013 and a number of cricketers, including a World Cup player, paraded into courts in masked hoodies. And now, a court in the Indian Capital has thrown the case out of window, saying the investigation lacked total merit.

Similarly, in the case of Sunanda Pushkar, cops in Delhi took almost a year to call the death a murder, confirming the wife of a former cabinet minister had ingested or been injected with poison. Worse, no suspects were named. Many words, rather answers, are still pending in the Pushkar murder. Who will provide ones which would be considered the most definitive?

The constant flip-flop raised very serious questions on the very credibility of Delhi Police and its ability to investigate high-profile cases without pressure. Similar flip-flops would soon emerge in the Saradha case in faraway Bengal, whose CM - despite losing some key Trinamool Congress men to the scandal - has started her political football, calling the CBI probe “a deep rooted conspiracy, political vendetta”.

Probably the judges, tired of such activism - once the cola giants were almost pressured to print on their bottles "The Product Contains Pesticide" - asked a very simple, basic question: When will investigations be full-proof in India?

And then, they rightly commented: “Now we must move to next stage of credibility”. The judges wanted, like everyone else, some quality control in PILs filed by Bhushan and his team. The numbers were, indeed, huge.It is a big piece of advice for both. Those who are serious in their charges, and those for whom filing PILs is nothing but a routine business. They are, actually, the rabble rousers in the courts.

All those in the PIL business must understand it is important to have the confidence of judges. Minus that, nothing will work.