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Indira Jaising | |
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Born | Indira Jaising 3 June 1940 |
Occupation | Lawyer |
Known for | Human rights and gender equality activism |
Spouse | Anand Grover |
Indira Jaising (b. 3 June 1940) is an Indian lawyer and activist. Jaising also runs Lawyers' Collective, a non-governmental organization (NGO), the license of which was permanently cancelled by the Home Ministry for alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (alleged misuse of foreign funds) in 2019. The Bombay High Court later passed an order to de-freeze NGO's domestic accounts. The case is ongoing in the Supreme Court of India.
Jaising was born on 3 June 1940 in Mumbai to a Sindhi Hindu family. [1] She attended St. Teresa's Convent High School, Santacruz, Mumbai, and the Bishop Cotton Girls' School, Bengaluru. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bangalore University. [1] In 1962, she earned a Master of Laws from the University of Bombay. [1]
In 1986, she became the first woman to be designated a Senior Advocate by the Bombay High Court. In 2009, Jaising became the first female Additional Solicitor General of India. From the beginning of her legal career, she has focused on the protection of human rights and the rights of women. [2] [3]
Jaising argued several cases relating to discrimination against women, [4] [5] including Mary Roy's case, [6] which led to the grant of equal inheritance rights for Syrian Christian women in Kerala, and the case of Rupan Deol Bajaj, the IAS officer who had successfully prosecuted KPS Gill for outraging her modesty. [7] This was one of the first cases of sexual harassment that had been successfully prosecuted. Jaising also argued the case of Githa Hariharan, in which the Supreme Court decided that a mother is equally a natural guardian of a child as a father. [8] Jaising also successfully challenged the discriminatory provisions of the Indian Divorce Act in the High Court of Kerala, thus enabling Christian women to get a divorce on the ground of cruelty or desertion, a right which was denied to them. She has also represented Teesta Setalvad in a case where she was targeted and accused of embezzling money. [9]
In 2015, Jaising argued the case for Priya Pillai in the Green Peace India case. [10] In 2016, Indira Jaising challenged the procedure for designating senior advocates in the Supreme Court. [11]
More recently, Indira Jaising wrote a column for The Indian Express, criticizing the manner in which the Indian Supreme Court rejected Nupur Sharma's plea for consolidation of FIRs in criminal cases filed against her for allegedly defaming Prophet Mohammed. In the article, Jaising said the Supreme Court's "remarks against Sharma are uncalled for, and can prejudice low courts." [12]
Jaising has represented the victims of the Bhopal tragedy in the Supreme Court of India in their claim for compensation against the Union Carbide Corporation. Jaising also represented Mumbai residents who were facing eviction. Jaising has been associated with several Peoples Commissions on Violence in Punjab to investigate the extra judicial killings, disappearances and mass cremations that took place during the period 1979 to 1990. The United Nations appointed Jaising to a fact-finding mission investigating the alleged murder, rape and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state. [13]
A keen environmentalist, Jaising has also argued major environmental cases in the Supreme Court. [14]
In 1981, Jaising founded the Lawyers Collective with her husband Anand Grover. The organisation is devoted to feminist and left-wing causes, especially the promotion of human rights. She later became the founder secretary of the Lawyers Collective, an organization that provides legal funding for the underprivileged sections of Indian society.[ citation needed ] She founded a monthly magazine called The Lawyers, in 1986, which focuses on social justice and women's issues in the context of Indian law. She has been involved in cases related to discrimination against women, the Muslim Personal Law, the rights of pavement dwellers and the homeless and the Bhopal gas tragedy. She has fought against child labor, for the economic rights of women, estranged wives and domestic violence cases. The NGO currently has had its license suspended for violating the FCRA norms. [15] [16] [17]
Jaising has attended several national and international conferences on women and represented her country at these conferences. Her NGO has been barred by the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) from receiving foreign funds. The NGO Lawyers' Collective has had their license suspended for violation of foreign funding norms. [18] [19] [20] However, the Bombay High Court passed an order to defreeze NGO's domestic accounts; the case continues in the Supreme Court [21]
She had a fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London and has been a visiting Scholar at the Columbia University New York.[ citation needed ] She was a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. She was conferred with the Rotary Manav Seva Award in recognition of her services to the nation in fighting corruption and as a champion of the weaker sections of the society. [22] [23]
Jaising was given the Padma Shree by the President of India in 2005 for her service to the cause of public affairs. [24] Her husband Anand Grover is a human rights lawyer and designated senior advocate of the Supreme Court. [25] In 2018, she was ranked 20th on the list of 50 Greatest Leaders of the World by Fortune magazine. [26]
Ram Boolchand Jethmalani was an Indian lawyer and politician. He served as India's Union Minister of Law and Justice, as chairman of the Indian Bar Council, and as the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
The Best Bakery case was a legal case involving the burning down of the Best Bakery, a small outlet in the Hanuman Tekri area in Vadodara, Gujarat, India, on 1 March 2002. During the incident, mob targeted the Sheikh family who ran the bakery and had taken refuge inside, resulting in the deaths of fourteen people. This case has come to symbolize the carnage in 2002 Gujarat riots that followed the Godhra train burning. All the 21 accused were acquitted by the court due to shoddy police work and issues with evidence.
Teesta Setalvad is an Indian civil rights activist and journalist. She is the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), an organisation formed to advocate for the victims of 2002 Gujarat riots.
The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence or the Gujarat pogrom, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, is cited as having instigated the violence. Following the initial riot incidents, there were further outbreaks of violence in Ahmedabad for three months; statewide, there were further outbreaks of violence against the minority Muslim population of Gujarat for the next year.
Mary Roy was an Indian educator and women's rights activist known for winning a Supreme Court lawsuit in 1986 against the inheritance law prevalent within the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community of Kerala. The judgement ensured equal rights for Syrian Christian women as with their male siblings in their ancestral property. Until then, her Syrian Christian community followed the provisions of the Travancore Succession Act of 1916 and the Cochin Succession Act, 1921, while elsewhere in India the same community followed the Indian Succession Act of 1925.
Githa Hariharan is an Indian writer and editor based in New Delhi. Her first novel, The Thousand Faces of Night, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the best first novel in 1993. Her other works include the short story collection The Art of Dying (1993), the novels The Ghosts of Vasu Master (1994), When Dreams Travel (1999), In Times of Siege (2003), Fugitive Histories (2009) and I Have Become the Tide (2019), and a collection of essays entitled Almost Home: Cities and Other Places (2014).
The Mathura rape case was an incident of custodial rape in India on 26 March 1972, wherein Mathura, a young tribal girl, was allegedly raped by two policemen on the compound of Desaiganj Police Station in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. After the Supreme Court acquitted the accused, there was public outcry and protests, which eventually led to amendments in the Indian rape law via The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1983.
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Lawyers Collective was a non-governmental organization in India which promotes human rights, especially on issues relating to women's rights, HIV, tobacco, LGBT and parliamentary corruption in India. On 1 June 2016, Govt of India suspended the registration of the NGO under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) for alleged violation of FCRA norms. This revoking of the license was challenged in the Bombay High Court and the case is currently pending. The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a first information report on 13 June 2019 relating to charges of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, false statement made in declaration and various sections under the FCRA and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
Anand Grover is a senior lawyer known for legal activism in Indian law relating to homosexuality and HIV. Along with his wife Indira Jaising, he is a founder-member of the Lawyers Collective. He was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health from August 2008 to July 2014. He is currently and acting member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
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The Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act, 2010 is an act of the Parliament of India, by the 42nd Act of 2010. It is a consolidating act whose scope is to regulate the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality by certain individuals or associations or companies and to prohibit acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality for any activities detrimental to the national interest and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. It is designed to correct shortfalls in the predecessor act of 1976. The bill received presidential assent on 26 September 2010.
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