Former law minister and veteran advocate Shanti Bhushan passed away on Tuesday aged 97.

Bhushan passed away after a brief illness.

Shanti Bhushan served as the law minister in the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government from 1977 to 1979, which came to power after the Emergency.

The former law minister was among the founding members of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which was formed in 2012. He had also actively participated in the agitation led by social activist Anna Hazare.

However, he fell out with AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal within two years of the formation of the party. In 2014, Bhushan attacked Kejriwal questioning his organisational skills.

Shanti Bhushan represented Raj Narain in a case in Allahabad High Court. Raj Narain, leader of Ram Manohar Lohia's SSP, had lost the Rae Bareilly Lok Sabha seat to Indira Gandhi, following which he filed an appeal to nullify Indira Gandhi's election, citing corrupt electoral practices.

In 2018, Bhushan had moved the Supreme Court challenging the roster practice of allocation of cases in the top court by the chief justice of India. The top court later ruled that the CJI is the ‘master of the roster’ and has the authority to allocate cases to different benches of the apex court.