Indira Jaising (born 3 June 1940) is an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

lawyer and activist. In 2018, she was ranked 20th on the list of 50 Greatest Leaders of the World by Fortune magazine. She also runs '' Lawyers' Collective,'' a non-governmental organization (NGO), the license of which was permanently cancelled by the Home Ministry for violations of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. The central government of India accused the NGO of using foreign funds in a manner not mentioned in the objectives of the NGO. The Bombay High Court later passed the order to de-freeze the domestic accounts of her NGO. The case is ongoing in the Supreme Court of India.

Early life

Jaising was born in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

to a

Sindhi Hindu Sindhi Hindus are Sindhis who follow the Hindu religion, whose origins lie in the Sindh region and spread across modern-day India and Pakistani Sindh province. After the Partition of India in 1947, many Sindhi Hindus were among those who fl ...

family. She attended St. Teresa's Convent High School,

Santacruz, Mumbai Santacruz or Santa Cruz (Pronunciation: aːn̪t̪akɾuːz is a neighbourhood of Mumbai. The Santacruz railway station on the Mumbai Suburban Railway, the domestic terminal (T1) of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, and one ...

, at the

Bishop Cotton Girls' School Bishop Cotton Girls' School, or BCGS, is a private all-girls' school for boarders and day scholars in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The school offers academic scholarships, which aid students from lower income backgrounds to afford tuition and ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

. She then earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

from

Bangalore University Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univer ...

. In 1962, earned a Master of Laws from the

University of Bombay The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed ...

. In 1981, Jaising founded the

Lawyers Collective 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 F ...

with her husband

Anand Grover 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 r ...

. The organization was devoted to feminist and left-wing causes. In 1986, she became the first woman to be designated a Senior Advocate by the High Court of Bombay. In 2009, Sonia Gandhi appointed Jaising as the first female Additional Solicitor General of India. From the beginning of her legal career, she has focused on the protection of select

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and the

rights of women Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

Fighting for women

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 Rupan Deol Bajaj case or Rupan Deol Bajaj vs KPS Gill case was one of the most publicized, high-profile legal cases in India and remained in the media limelight for many years. In this high-profile case, KPS Gill, at the time Director Gener ...

, 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 Githa Hariharan (born 1954) 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 coll ...

, in which the Supreme Court decided that children could also bear the name of their mother in addition to that of their father. Jaising also successfully challenged the discriminatory provisions of th
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 Teesta Setalvad (born 9 February 1962) 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. Personal life ...

, in a case where she was targeted and accused of embezzling money. In 2015, Jaising argued the case for Priya Pillai in Green Peace India case. In 2016, Indira Jaising challenged the procedure for designating senior advocates in the Supreme Court. More recently, Indira Jaising wrote a column for

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...

, 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 Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monoth ...

. In the article, Jaising said the Supreme Court's "remarks against Sharma are uncalled for, and can prejudice low courts."

Human rights and the environment

Jaising has represented the victims of the

Bhopal Bhopal (; ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes'' due to its various natural and artificial lakes. It i ...

tragedy in the Supreme Court of India in their claim for compensation against the

Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befo ...

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 and to a fact-finding mission investigating the alleged murder, rape and torture by security forces against

Rohingya Muslims The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...

in Myanmar's Rakhine state. A keen environmentalist, Jaising has also argued major environmental cases in the Supreme Court.

Lawyers Collective

Jaising later became the founder secretary of the

, an organization that provides legal funding for the underprivileged sections of Indian society. She founded a monthly magazine called ''The Lawyers'', in 1986, which focuses on

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

and women's issues in the context of Indian law. She has been involved in cases related to the discrimination against women, the ''Muslim Personal Law'', rights of pavement dwellers and the homeless and the

gas tragedy. She has fought against

child labor Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...

, 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.

Other

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. However, the Bombay HC has ordered to defreeze the domestic accounts of her NGO. She had a fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies London and has been a visiting Scholar at the

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York. She was a member of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

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. She was given the Padma Shree by the President of India in 2005 for her service to the cause of public affairs. Her husband Anand Grover is a human rights lawyer and designated senior advocate of the Supreme Court.

References

External links

Woman Against Family
- blog entry by Jaising written on the first anniversary of the domestic violence act
Contempt, the flavour of the season
Indira Jaising writes: Why Attorney General and the Central Government's contempt of court petitions against Advocate Prashant Bhushan stand on thin ice {{DEFAULTSORT:Jaising, Indira Scholars from Mumbai 1940 births Living people United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women members Indian solicitors Recipients of the Padma Shri in public affairs Additional Solicitors General of India Indian women's rights activists Indian women activists Indian women educational theorists 20th-century Indian educational theorists Indian feminists Activists from Maharashtra Women educators from Maharashtra Women scientists from Maharashtra Educators from Maharashtra Indian officials of the United Nations 20th-century women educators 20th-century Indian lawyers 20th-century Indian women lawyers 21st-century Indian lawyers 21st-century Indian women lawyers Supreme Court of India lawyers Senior Advocates in India