Common Cause, the voluntary organisation Shourie set up after his return from a UNassignment, has filed more than 60 public interest litigations in various courts andconsumer fora. And if four million pensioners all over the country have benefited from theliberalisation of the pension process, restoration of commutation of pension, andextension of family pension to widows, they know whom to thank.
It’s been a tough—and often a very lonely—battle for the octogenarian.Very few of Common Cause’s 5,000 members are still active. But the inexhaustibleShourie has far from given up: "I have been a civil servant all my life. So publicservice has become a bent of mind. I only wish others would join me in thisstruggle." But as he peers over a mountain of material preparing for another toughcourtroom battle that will affect all of us, he is ever the optimist. "Very soonpeople will learn to fight for themselves. I keep advising them to," he says.