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Mary Roy case in SC: Equal property rights for women
Context
A celebrated champion of gender equality and a renowned educator, Mary Roy passed away recently.
About
Mary Roy:
- Mary Roy was the mother of Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy.
- Mary Roy was a passionate advocate for women’s rights and the founder of the Pallikoodam School in Kottayam, Kerala.
- She best known for the “Mary Roy” case, the prolonged legal battle that ensured equal property rights for women from Kerala’s Syrian Christian families.
Mary Roy Case:
- Mary Roy case is seen as a milestone in ensuring gender justice in India.
- Mary Roy sued her brother, George Isaac in 1983 petition under Article 32 for being denied equal rights to her deceased father’s property.
- Mary Roy mounted a legal challenge to the law after she was asked to leave her father’s Ooty cottage that she had returned to, along with her two children, after her divorce.
- Question before SC: The key question before the Supreme Court was whether, in territories that once formed part of the erstwhile Travancore state, matters of intestate (a person who has died without leaving a will) succession to the property of Indian Christian community members were governed by the Travancore Christian Succession Act 1917, or by the Indian Succession Act, 1925.
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Travancore Succession Act
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Verdict in the case
- The Supreme Court in its 1986 judgment upheld the supremacy of the Indian Succession Act, 1925.
- SC ruled that in case the deceased parent has not left a will, the succession will be decided as per the Indian Succession Act, 1925 which will also apply to the Indian Christian Community in the erstwhile state of Travancore.
- Although the Supreme Court had ruled the case in her favour as early as February 1986, it took another 25 years for her to get a final verdict – a decree from a Kottayam sub-court in 2009.
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