SC judgement on MPs, MLAs: Who are the petitioners Lok Prahari?

A petition filed by a Lucknow-based NGO Lok Prahari with lawyer Lily Thomas in the Supreme Court challenging provisions of the Representation of the People Act today resulted in the apex court striking down that norm effecting far reaching consequences in the political field. But what is known about the NGO Lok Prahari? As per their website, registered in 2003 in Lucknow as an NGO, Lok Prahari had filed the writ petition through its general secretary SN Shukla—Challenging the Constitutional validity of Section 8 (4) of the Representation of the People Act 1951—in 2005. [caption id=“attachment_945913” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The Lok Prahari logo. Image courtesy Lok Prahari[/caption] In a nutshell, the Supreme Court judgement now bars any convicted person to vote or participate in polls or even continue in office either as a legislator or parliamentarian. However, the provisions of the judgement won’t be implemented in retrospect, so existing legislators are safe. The 20-member Lok Prahari consists of retired bureaucrats, police personnel, professors and people from other fields including the judiciary. According to the website of the organisation, Lok Prahari has 10 founder members while the rest joined later. Former chief election commissioner and Gujarat governor RK Trivedi is the chief patron of Lok Prahari while former DGP and chairman UPPSC JN Chaturvedi and retired Allahabad High Court judge SN Sahai are patrons of the organisation. Former member, Board of Revenue, Uttar Pradesh NM Majmudar is the president of Lok Prahari while retired secretary general, Rajya Sabha RC Tripathi is the vice president of the NGO. Former chairman Board of Revenue S Venkatramani also functions as vice president. The complete list of Lok Prahari members: 1. RK Trivedi Former Chief Election Commissioner Former Governor of Gujarat State Chief Patron 2. JN Chaturvedi Former DGP & Chairman UPPSC Patron 3. SN Sahai Former Judge High Court, Allahabad Patron 4. NM Majmudar Former Member Board of Revenue, UP President 5. S Venkatramani Former chairman Board of Revenue Vice-President-I 6. RC Tripathi Former Secretary General, Rajya Sabha Vice-President-II 7. SN Shukla IAS, (Retd.), Advocate General Secretary 8. PC Sharma IAS, (Retd.) Secretary 9. PD Chaturvedi IAS (Retd.) Treasurer 10. IC Dwivedi Former DGP, Uttar Pradesh Member 11. M Subhramanyam IAS (Retd.) Member 12. AK Das IAS (Retd.) Member 13. SAT Rizvi IAS (Retd.) Member 14. SK Agnihotri IAS (Retd.) Member 15. Anirudh Mithal Former GM, Railways Member 16. GD Mehrotra IAS (Retd.) Member 17. UPS Kushwaha Former District Judge Member 18. Harinder Paintal Former Professor, Lucknow University Member 19. RP Singh Engineer Member 20. VVB Mishra Journalist Member