Indira Jaising

Indira Jaising (born 1940, Mumbai) is a leftist Indian lawyer. She went to school in Mumbai and graduated in Bangalore, before getting her degree in law in 1962. Jaising became the second woman to be designated as a Senior Advocate by the High Court of Bombay in 1986 (the first was Sohini Nanavati).She became the first woman to be appointed Additional Solicitor General of India in 2009. From the beginning of her legal career, she has focused on protection of human rights, rights of women and those of the poor working class.

Fighting For Women

Indira Jaising argued several cases relating to discrimination against women, including Mary Roy's case, which led to the grant of equal inheritance rights for Syrian Christian women in Kerala and Rupan Deol Bajaj, the IAS officer who had prosecuted KPS Gill for outraging her modesty. This was one of the first cases of sexual harassment, successfully prosecuted. Jaising also argued the case of Githa Hariharan in which the Supreme Court in a Bench presided over by Chief Justice A.S. Anand held that under Hindu law, the mother was also the "natural guardian" of her minor children, so that the children could also bear the name of the mother. 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, which greatly bothered Jaising.

Human Rights and......

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