02 September,2022 09:18 AM IST | Kottayam | Agencies
Mary Roy with daughter Arundhati Roy. Pic/Twitter@shajikrishnan
Noted educationist and social worker Mary Roy, whose legal battle ensured equal rights for Syrian Christian women in their ancestral property, died due to age-related ailments on Thursday, family sources said. She was 89.
Roy, mother of writer and Man Booker Prize Winner Arundhati Roy and Lalith Roy, is also the founder of famous Pallikoodam school in Kottayam, established in 1967.
It was in the mid-1980s, Roy had launched a legal battle in the Supreme Court seeking gender equality for women in inheritance in the ancestral property of the Syrian Christian families in Kerala.
In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court overturned the provisions in the Travancore Succession Act of 1916 of the princely state of Travancore, and ruled that women members of the community had equal rights in their father's property. The case, fought against her brothers seeking her equal rights over her deceased father's property, is known as the "Mary Roy case" in Indian legal history.
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Born in 1933 in a famous Christian family at Aymanam village near here, Roy did her schooling in Delhi and later secured a degree from a college in Chennai. She married Rajeeb Roy while working as secretary at a company in Kolkata.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly V D Satheesan condoled the demise of Roy.
Vijayan said Mary made significant contributions in education and activities to ensure women's welfare in the society, and made a place in history through her legal fight for property rights of women. Satheesan said she was a symbol of the struggle for women's rights.
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