In October 13, 2011, public interest crusader and lawyer Prashant Bhushan was attacked inside his chamber in the high security Supreme Court complex by members of a militant Hindu fringe group for his controversial remarks on a referendum in Kashmir. He was dragged out of his chair as he gave a TV interview and repeatedly kicked and punched.If this was shocking, what followed was surprising - except for Bhushan, perhaps. A similar attack on a lawyer would have triggered widespread protests from the Bar. The response this time around was muted. "I am quite isolated and have few good friends within the legal fraternity. It is because of my exposes in various fields. The corporate sector is also against me," says Bhushan, who is a key member of Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party.Bhushan, by his own admission, has made enemies in powerful places in the course of his many legal battles for public causes. He has argued nearly 300 public interest litigations (PILs) and is, for all purposes, India's Public Interest Litigant No.1 - as the major chunk of the cases target corruption in government, the judiciary and the corporate world, on social justice, environment and civil liberties. These include the 2G scam, the Radia tapes, Coalgate and iron ore mining scams, to name a few.Environmentalist and social activist Vandana Shiva was his inspiration. She was the first one to approach him to file a PIL in 1983 - the year he began his practice - against limestone mining in the Doon valley. Civil rights violations during the emergency saw him dragged into civil liberty issues. His father, lawyer and former Union minister Shanti Bhushan had earned a name after representing Janata Party leader Raj Narain on whose petition the Allahabad High Court had set aside Indira Gandhi's election."There is no one incident which motivated me to become a public interest petitioner. It was a gradual process. I was pulled into it like a whirlpool. The fight for civil liberty and rights then became a passion and there has been no looking back. Gradually those who had proof of corruption at various levels also began to approach me to file PILs," says Bhushan.He knows he is playing with fire. Recently his three sons, all law students at Delhi University, came to see him argue a PIL against illegal iron ore mining in Goa. They told him that many miners sitting in the court were abusing him."Prashant Bhushan is a fearless lawyer and argues thoroughly. His well-researched arguments have always been of great assistance," says former Supreme Court judge, Justice A.K. Ganguly. , who was part of the bench which monitored 2G spectrum scam probe."Bhushan is like Jack the Giant Slayer - very steadfast and focussed in his arguments. He also takes criticism in the right spirit," says former Delhi High Court judge, Justice R.S. Sodhi. He has been the main instrument for judicial activism by the Supreme Court in the past few years as he often kept the UPA government on tenterhooks.More recently, his revelations in the 2G spectrum, Radia tapes, coal and iron ore mining scams put the government and the corporate world in trouble. Till the Supreme Court on his PIL, ordered CBI to conduct a thorough probe into the spectrum scam on December 16, 2010, the CBI remained inactive for more than a year despite receiving information from the Central Vigilance Commission. Bhushan painstakingly explained to the court how the former telecom minister minister A. Raja, the prime accused in the 2G scam, allegedly committed serious irregularities in the grant of licences and caused huge loss to the exchequer. The apex court cancelled all 122 licenses on February 2, 2012.Then, in the coal scam, after severely rapping the government, the Supreme Court began scrutinising coal block allocation since 1993 seeking cancellation of allocations on the ground that rules were flouted to favour certain companies. CBI has already registered 14 FIRS in the case and the role of Prime Minister. Bhushan has courted several controversies with one of these leading to a contempt of court case against him. In an interview to a magazine in 2009, he had made the sensational claim that at least half of the 16 former chief justices in the Supreme Court were corrupt.Leading lawyer Harish Salve filed a contempt case in 2010 which is being heard and the Supreme Court has given Bhushan an opportunity to apologise. Instead of apologizing, he filed an explanation why he felt those judges were corrupt. The matter has now been put in cold storage.After severely rapping the government, the Supreme Court (SC) scrutinised coal block allocation since 1993 based on Prashant Bhushan's PIL which sought cancellation of allocations on ground that rules were flouted to favour certain companies. CBI has already registered 14 FIRs in the case and put Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's (left) role under the scanner. SC also sent notices to Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal to explain allocation policy.It was on the basis of his PIL in September 2010 that SC forced CBI to probe the irregularities in the auction of 2G spectrum. Bhushan alleged that a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore was caused to the exchequer by issuing spectrum based on 2001 prices in 2008. Under pressure, telecom minister A. Raja (right) was forced to resign. He was later arrested and became the prime accused in the case. The seventeen accused in the case also included DMK MP Kanimozhi, officials of Unitech wireless and Reliance ADAG.Pointing to "deep-rooted malice" and "connivance" of private entrepreneurs with government officials for illegal gains, SC, on September 16, acted on Bushan's petition and ordered a CBI investigation into various contentious conversations that former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia (left) had had with several people, including industrialists and journalists.In 2009, he represented activist Subhash Aggarwal in battles before the Central Information Commission and Delhi High Court to bring SC and high court judges, including the Chief Justice of India, under RTI. He said that the public had a right to know details of assets owned by judges who were forced to declare their assets and post it on the website of the courts.In March 2011, SC acted on his PIL and struck down P.J. Thomas's (left) appointment as Central Vigilance Commissioner. The verdict raised serious questions on the Prime Minister and Home Minister's role in appointing Thomas who had been chargesheeted in the palmolein scam.He filed a PIL against illegal iron ore extraction in Goa (left) and the government was rapped for doing nothing to control such activity across the country. Bhushan sought a cap on the maximum limit of mining as the minerals needed to be preserved for future generations. In October 2012, SC halted mining operations in all the 90 mines in Goa.Based on his PIL, SC raised questions on the functioning of the civil aviation ministry during 2004-2008. Under scanner were the purchase of 111 aircrafts for Rs 70,000 crore to benefit foreign aircraft manufacturers, several aircrafts taken on-lease costing thousands of crores of rupees, bilateral rights given to foreign airlines without any reciprocal benefit to Air India while the company itself was asked to give up profitable routes and timings to benefit private airlines.In 1990, he successfully got the criminal liability aspect in the Bhopal gas tragedy reopened by SC, by challenging the settlement in the case of compensation to the victims. This reopened the case against 90-year-old former Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation Warren Anderson.He filed a PIL seeking to enforce liability of the supplier or makers of the plant in case of a nuclear mishap at the Kudankulam plant (left) in Tamil Nadu. SC said the plant should not be made operational unless all authorities granted "final clearance" for its commissioning.Acting on his PIL, SC directed the Central Vigilance Commission to apprise it of actions taken on complaints by whistleblowers in the country.Acting on his his petitions, the Delhi High Court and SC held that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi could not cap the number of licences for cycle rickshaws as putting any such restriction would amount to denial of a person's basic right to earn a livelihood.Many of these cases would perhaps not have come up had Bhushan stuck to his original plan for becoming an engineer. He went to study engineering at IIT Madras but dropped out after one semester. He did a short course in philosophy at Princeton University in the US. "The main reason for it was that I had a two-year-old sister to whom I was very attached," he says."Prashant has been a consistent fighter. He has a knack for choosing public interest subjects and is committed to the eradication of corruption," says Ashok Agarwal, a leading PIL lawyer.There are other fights, political fights ahead for him now. The campaign for an anti-corruption ombudsman during the Lokpal movement was one such in which he played a leading role. "The Congress and BJP are corrupt. We decided that till we did not defeat them in elections things won't change. That is why we formed a political party," he says about Aam Aadmi Party.