Mohd. Ahmad Khan v. Shah Bano Begum [1985 (1) SCALE 767 = 1985 (3) SCR 844 = 1985 (2) SCC 556 = AIR 1985 SC 945], commonly referred to as the Shah Bano case, was a controversial maintenance lawsuit in India, in which the Supreme Court delivered a judgment favouring maintenance given to an aggrieved divorced Muslim woman. Then the Congress government enacted a law with its most controversial aspect being the right to maintenance for the period of iddat after the divorce, and shifting the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the Waqf Board. It was seen as discriminatory as it denied right to basic maintenance available to Muslim women under secular law.
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.
Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud was an Indian jurist who served as the 16th Chief Justice of India, serving from 22 February 1978 to the day he retired on 11 July 1985. Born in Pune in the Bombay Presidency, he was first appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of India on 28 August 1972 and is the longest-serving Chief Justice in India's history at 7 years and 4 months. His nickname was Iron Hands after his well-regarded unwillingness to let anything slip past him.
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.
The men's rights movement in India is composed of various independent men's rights organisations in India. Proponents of the movement support the introduction of gender-neutral legislation and repeal of laws that they consider are biased against men.
The Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) is an Indian non-profit organisation founded in 1989 to protect the fundamental human rights and civil liberties of the most marginalised and vulnerable members of society. Working on the intersection of law, advocacy, policy, and education, HRLN is organised as a collective of lawyers and social activists dedicated to providing legal assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals, advocating for the implementation of structures to safeguard human rights and fight systemic oppression, and educating the public on their rights and remedies. HRLN provides pro bono legal services to marginalised groups, conducts investigations into human rights violations, and undertakes high-stakes impact litigation in service of the public interest. The organisation operates across the spectrum of public interest law, focusing specifically on children’s rights, rights of disabled persons, rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, prisoners' rights, refugee rights, rights of indigenous people, workers' rights, rights of minorities, and the protection of victims of sexual violence or trafficking.
Colin Gonsalves is a designated Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India and the founder of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN). He specializes in human rights protection, labour law and public interest law. He has been awarded Right Livelihood Award for the year 2017 for "his tireless and innovative use of public interest litigation over three decades to secure fundamental human rights for India’s most marginalised and vulnerable citizens." Considered a pioneer in the field of public interest litigation in India, he has brought several cases dealing with economic, social and cultural rights. Most of these cases, decided by the Supreme Court, have been set as precedents.
Lawyers Collective is 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 FCRA registration of the NGO 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 (PC) 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.
Lotika Sarkar was a noted Indian feminist, social worker, educator and lawyer, who was a pioneer in the field of women's studies and women's rights in India. She was a founding member of Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS), Delhi, established in 1980, and also Indian Association for Women Studies, established in 1982. Starting in 1951, she taught law at Faculty of Law, University of Delhi till 1983, and also remained the head of the law faculty; thereafter she taught at Indian Law Institute. She was the first Indian woman to graduate from Cambridge University, and later in 1951 she also became the first woman to receive a PhD degree in law from the university.
Pinky Anand is an Indian lawyer and was designated as until May 2020. She served as an Additional Solicitor General of India at the Supreme Court of India. She is also a politician.
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.
Shabnam Hashmi is an Indian social activist and human rights campaigner born to Haneef and Qamar Azad Hashmi.. She is the sister of Safdar Hashmi and Sohail Hashmi. Safdar Hashmi was a communist playwright and director, best known for his work with street theatre in India.
Amnesty International India was a country unit of the Amnesty International network, and was part of a global movement promoting and defending human rights and dignity. In September 2020, Amnesty halted its operations in the country after all bank accounts of the organization were frozen. The organization called this as 'witch hunting' while the government of India said the organisation's FCRA had been declined one after other for 20 years by different governments in power as per the law
Abha Singh is an Indian activist and advocate currently practicing in the High Court of Judicature at Bombay. Her activism has focused on women's rights, gender equality, and justice.
Manjula Pradeep is an Indian human rights activist and a lawyer. She is the former Executive Director of Navsarjan Trust, one of the largest Dalit rights organizations in India, addressing the issues of caste discrimination and gender based discrimination.
Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani is a former Indian judge and prosecutor, who last served as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. Previously, as a judge of the Bombay High Court, she notably upheld the conviction of several persons for the rape of a pregnant Muslim woman during the 2002 Gujarat riots, chastising investigative authorities for their inaction in the matter, and also refused parole for those convicted in the 1993 Bombay bombings. She retired in 2019, after refusing to accept a controversial transfer from the Madras High Court to the Meghalaya High Court.
Rahul Kamerkar is an Indian lawyer and author.
