Another gunfight between security forces and terrorists in Jammu
This is the third encounter in J&K in the past few hours.
Mary Roy, who fought a four-decade-long legal battle to ensure equal succession rights for women belonging to the Christian community, died in Kottayam after a brief illness on Thursday.
She was 89 and is survived by two children, son Lalit Roy and daughter Arundhati Roy, renowned writer and activist who won the 1997 Man Booker prize.
It was in the petition filed by Mary Roy that the Supreme court delivered the landmark judgment against the Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916 to ensure Christian women an equal share in family property She was an academician and a champion of gender equality. Mary had established Corpus Christi School in Kottayam, which was later renamed Pallikkoodam School.
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Born in a Syrian Christian family, Mary Roy realised the perils in the lives of Christian women when she was asked to vacate her home in Ooty after the death of her father. Her father P V Isaac was an entomologist.
Born in 1933, Mary Roy had her schooling in Delhi and completed her college studies at Queens Mary College in Chennai. She married Rajib Roy while working in Calcutta. Due to marital issues she returned to her father’s house in Ooty.
Mary won the long-standing legal battle for succession right over the property of her father in February 1986. As per the Travancore Syrian Christian Succession Act, 1916, a woman was not entitled to inherit a share of the family property if the father in his will does not specify a share for her. She may get only one-fourth of the value of the share of the son or Rs 5,000, whichever was less. A widow who returned to her parental home could enjoy the ancestral property until she died or remarried. Since Mary’s father did not leave behind a will, she approached the court
Although the Supreme Court had ruled the case in her favour in February 1986, it took another 25 years for her to get a final verdict – a decree from a Kottayam sub-court.
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