Ravi Shankar Prasad

Ravi Shankar Prasad (born 30 August 1954) is an Indian politician and lawyer, from the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He became a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in 1969.

Prasad participated in the student movement in Bihar led by Jayaprakash Narayan, and was imprisoned during the Emergency.

Prasad began his political career as a student leader under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s, organising protests against Indira Gandhi's government.

Prasad has been practising at the Patna High Court (HC) since 1980.

He defended Lal Krishna Advani in court when the latter was arrested in Bihar during his Rath Yatra in 1990.

He was also the main lawyer arguing the PIL against former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad in the fodder scam that led to the jailing of several politicians and officials, including Lalu Yadav

.

A loyalist of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the beginning of his political career, Prasad was National Vice President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP, from 1991 to 1995.

He became a Member of the BJP's National Executive Committee in 1995.

He was designated Senior Advocate at the Patna HC in 1999 and Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India in 2000.

He was General Secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties in Bihar.

Prasad appeared in the Ram Janmabhoomi Ayodhya dispute representing 'Ram Lalla ', the deity, in the case.

A Member of Parliament since 2000, first in the Rajya Sabha (2000–2019) and then in the Lok Sabha (since 2019), Prasad has served as Union Minister multiple times: As Minister of State, he served in the ministries of Coal (2001–2003), Law and Justice (2002–2003), and Information and Broadcasting (2003–2004) under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's premiership; as Cabinet Minister, he held the Law and Justice (2014, 2016–2021), Communications (2014–2016, 2019–2021), and Electronics and Information Technology (2014–2021) portfolios under Narendra Modi's premiership.

His term as Union Minister was marked with the repeal of 1500 archaic laws, the landmark resolution of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute, handling of litigation over the purchase of Rafale fighter planes, and digitization of 15000 trial courts.

On the other hand, his tenure also saw controversy over the proposed National Judicial Appointments Commission, constant friction between the judiciary and the executive, and rows with social media platforms Twitter and Facebook over local rules.

He was born in a religious Chitraguptvanshi Kayastha family in Patna, Bihar.

His father Thakur Prasad was a senior advocate at the Patna High Court and one of the leading founders of the Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

His sister Anuradha Prasad is the owner of BAG Films and Media Ltd, and the wife of Congress politician Rajeev Shukla.

Prasad earned BA Hons, MA (Political Science) and LL.B degrees from Patna University.

In April 2000, Prasad was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament for the first time.

Under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's premiership, Prasad served as Minister of State in the ministries of Coal (2001–2003), where he was responsible for accelerating the coal and mining reforms; Law and Justice (2002–2003); and Information and Broadcasting (2003–2004).

As Minister of Information and Broadcasting, he introduced reforms in the radio, television and animation sectors which improved their quality and functioning.

Prasad was appointed as a national spokesperson of the BJP in March 2006, and was later elevated to the post of its Chief National Spokesperson in 2007.

Prasad was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha for a second term in April 2006 and for a third in April 2012.

In 2010, he became the party's general secretary.

As an MP, he was part of various parliamentary committees, including a joint parliamentary committee to examine matters relating to 2G spectrum case from 2011 to 2013.

With the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's victory in the 2014 general election, Prasad rose to become part of the Narendra Modi Cabinet.

He was appointed as Minister of Law and Justice and Minister for Communications and Information Technology on 27 May 2014.

He would go on to serve three terms as Law Minister: 27 May to 9 November 2014; 5 July 2016 to 25 May 2019; and 30 May 2019 to 7 July 2021; a tenure of more than 5 years that was second only to that of Ashoke Sen.

One of Prasad's first acts after becoming Law Minister in 2014 was introducing legislation for the National Judicial Appointments Commission, which sought to reform the collegium system by which judges select candidates to be appointed as new judges.

The collegium system had been criticised as opaque.

The law was unanimously passed in Parliament and ratified by more than 20 states.

However, in 2015, the Supreme Court of India struck it down, arguing that the Law Minister's presence in the Appointments Commission would cripple judicial independence.

The following year, the Law Ministry stalled many judges' appointments by objecting to various names recommended by the Supreme Court collegium.

Prasad was Minister of Communications and IT till the ministry's bifurcation on 5 July 2016 into a Ministry of Communications and a Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, following which he took charge of the latter.

Prasad defended the executive in this faceoff with the judiciary by rolling out statistics showing an increased number of judges being appointed in the year 2016.

He was on the job till 25 May 2019, and again from 30 May 2019 to 7 July 2021.

During the latter period, he also held the Communications portfolio.

A successful conclusion of the Ayodhya dispute was achieved by a Supreme Court judgement in 2019, during Prasad's tenure as Law Minister.