Press Releases

Common Cause welcomes today’s judgement of the Constitution Bench in the contempt petition filed jointly by ADR and Common Cause. As co-petitioners in the Electoral Bonds petition in 2017, challenging the constitutionality of Electoral Bonds, and again in the contempt petition filed last...

Common Cause and ADR, the original petitioners in the Electoral Bonds case, stand vindicated by today’s Supreme Court verdict which struck down the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018 holding that it is violative of the right to information under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. The two...

New Delhi, March 31, 2023: The Status of Policing in India Report 2023 was launched today at the India Habitat Centre by a panel of eminent personalities, followed by a discussion on rethinking surveillance. The theme of this year’s report is surveillance and privacy, and in his keynote...

New Delhi, April 5, 2019: The threat posed by digital platforms to the integrity of elections has assumed alarming proportions. In this context, a group of former civil servants, which has been engaging with the Election Commission of India over the conduct of free and fair elections, had offered...

New Delhi, March 19, 2019: Common Cause welcomes the decision to appoint Former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose as India’s first Lokpal.  This appointment is a direct result of an Intervention Application filed by Common Cause through its counsel Prashant Bhushan on January...

New Delhi, January 8, 2019: The Supreme Court on January 8, 2019, backed Alok Verma and reinstated him as CBI director in response to pleas filed by him and NGO Common Cause. The top court set aside the orders of the CVC and the Government of India dated October 23, 2018, which divested Verma of...

New Delhi, November 23: In the wake of brutal incidents of murder, rape, physical and sexual assault of domestic workers across the country, such as the recent case of a 16-year-old domestic worker being hacked to pieces for asking for her salary, Common Cause has filed a writ petition in public...

Common Cause and Lokniti Programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), launched India’s first Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR 2018) at the India Habitat Centre on May 9. The release was followed by a panel discussion on “People-Centric Policing and the...

Common Cause, an organisation dedicated to serving public causes through democratic interventions, is shocked that the NDA government has followed exactly the same practice and procedures as the predecessor UPA government in the appointment of the new Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India....

Common Cause has approached the Supreme Court regarding bribes paid to prominent politicians by corporate groups. It is feared that the groups, whose premises were raided by the CBI and the Income Tax Department in 2013 and 2014, might go for ‘settlement’ of their cases, amounting to a...

NEW DELHI: Common Cause, in consultation with Vidhi Centre of Legal Policy and Inclusive Media for Change has put forth suggestions for improvement of the Collegium System for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and the High Courts. The consultation was attended by representatives from...

Common Cause welcomed the landmark Supreme Court judgment which lays down guidelines for publicly funded government advertisements misused ostensibly to promote political leaders and parties in power. The apex court bench comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice P C Ghose prohibits in its...

Common Cause, a registered society which takes up public causes on behalf of the citizens of India, has welcomed the momentous Supreme Court judgment striking down Section 66A as unconstitutional. Apetitioner in this case, Common Cause, had filed its writ petition challenging the Constitutional...

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The Governing Council of Common Cause is greatly shocked and anguished over the dastardly assault on its distinguished member, Shri Prashant Bhushan, by certain fascist elements yesterday afternoon. The attack is symptomatic of the growing intolerance and steady erosion of democratic values in our...

In the following joint statement, Common Cause and Development Alternatives have expressed their solidarity with the civil society nominees on the joint drafting committee for Lokpal Bill, against whom an orchestrated campaign of vilification has been mounted by certain elements in the political...

It may interest you to know that Common Cause filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court on February 10, 2010 through the renowned public interest lawyer, Mr Prashant Bhushan, highlighting how Article 124(7) of the Constitution of India is being violated in both letter and spirit because of...

The need for a comprehensive reform of the system of policing in the country, which is essentially based on the colonial Indian Police Act of 1860, has long been felt. Over the years, various Commissions and expert bodies have submitted their recommendations on the subject. A “Police Act...