Ravi Shankar Prasad (born 30 August 1954) is an Indian politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party and a senior advocate of the Supreme Court. He was Union Minister of Law and Justice and of Electronics and Information Technology for most of the period from 2014 to 2021, and he has represented Patna Sahib in the Lok Sabha since 2019. He was one of the lawyers who argued the Ayodhya title case for the Hindu side.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Ravi Shankar Prasad |
| Born | 30 August 1954, Patna, Bihar, India |
| Age | 72 |
| Party | Bharatiya Janata Party |
| Offices | Minister of Law and Justice (2014, 2016–2021); Electronics and IT (2014–2021); Communications (2014–2016, 2019–2021) |
| Constituency | Patna Sahib (Lok Sabha, since 2019) |
| Education | Patna University (B.A. Hons, M.A. Political Science, LL.B.) |
| Spouse | Maya Shankar |
| Children | 2 |
Early Life
Prasad was born in Patna. His father, Thakur Prasad, was a senior advocate and a founder of the Jana Sangh in Bihar. As a student leader he took part in Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement and was jailed during the Emergency.
Legal Career
He began practising at the Patna High Court in 1980 and was designated a senior advocate in 1999, moving to the Supreme Court in 2000. He was a lawyer for the petitioners in the fodder scam case against Lalu Prasad Yadav and appeared for “Ram Lalla” in the Ayodhya dispute.
Political Career
He entered the Rajya Sabha in 2000 and was a minister for coal, law and information and broadcasting in Atal Bihari Vajpayee‘s government. For years he was one of the BJP’s chief spokespersons. In Narendra Modi‘s government he led the Digital India programme, the expansion of Aadhaar-linked services and Common Service Centres, and the 2021 rules for social media companies, which led to a public dispute with Twitter. As Law Minister he piloted the law criminalising instant triple talaq. In 2019 he defeated the actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha in Patna Sahib. He resigned from the cabinet in the reshuffle of July 2021 and was re-elected in 2024.
Personal Life
He is married to Maya Shankar, a professor of history at Patna University, and they have a son and a daughter.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Ravi Shankar Prasad born?
Ravi Shankar Prasad was born on 30 August 1954 in Patna, Bihar, India and is 72 years old.
Featured image: Ravi Shankar Prasad, then Minister for Electronics and IT and Law and Justice, speaks at an event in New Delhi, 4 March 2017. Photo by Ministry of Electronics & IT, Government of India, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
