Mary Roy

Mary Roy (1933 – 1 September 2022) was an Indian educator and women's rights activist known for winning a Supreme Court lawsuit in 1986 against the gender biased inheritance law prevalent within the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community of Kerala. The judgement ensured equal rights for Syrian Christian women as with their male siblings in their ancestral property. Until then, her Syrian Christian community followed the provisions of the Travancore Succession Act of 1916 and the Cochin Succession Act, 1921, while elsewhere in India the same community followed the Indian Succession Act of 1925.

Roy died in Kottayam on 1 September 2022, after a long period of age-related illness.

A bill was introduced by P. J. Kurien from the Congress party in the parliament to undo the retrospective application which did not find much support. A subsequent bill from the Kerala government under K. Karunakaran, Travancore and Cochin Succession (Revival and Validation) Bill did not receive presidential assent. A subsequent motion in the Supreme Court was also dismissed. Though she won the case, Roy did not get access to the property because a district court ruled that division of the property was not possible. Roy approached the Kerala High Court in 1994 to get the lower court's judgement overruled. She was successful. After her mother's death in 2000, she approached the Kottayam Sub-court for the final decree. The case continued for eight years after which she filed the execution petition in 2009, and she finally received the property in 2010. It is noted that her share of the property was ₹2 crores, an amount that she left to charity.

When the case was taken up by the Supreme Court of India, a bench led by Justice P. N. Bhagwati and Justice R. S. Pathak heard the case and delivered the judgement in 1986. While the judgement which was in Roy's favor did not speak about the case as violation Article 14 of the Constitution of India which guaranteed gender equality. Instead, the judgement was based on the fact that The Part B States (Laws) Act, 1951, extended national laws to Part B states, which were princely states that were integrated into the union of India. This extension implied that the Travancore Christian Succession Act was invalid after 1951 and was superseded by the Indian Succession Act of 1925. The verdict was applicable retroactively and found opposition from multiple groups that believed that the retroactive nature of the verdict would open up the floodgates for litigations either arising from property inheritance or even properties pledged for loans with the banks. Roy was represented by advocate Indira Jaising, herself a women's right activist.

Mary Roy was the daughter of P. V. Isaac, an entomologist who trained in England under Harold Maxwell-Lefroy and became Imperial Entomologist at Pusa, and Susy Isaac. She was born in 1933 and was the youngest among four siblings in the family. In a personal interview with The Times of India, she disclosed personal details about her life. She admitted to having a complicated relationship with her elder brother George, whom she would later sue over property inheritance. She grew up in Delhi where she completed her schooling before going to Madras (present day Chennai) to obtain a degree. She later moved to Calcutta and worked as a company secretary. She married Rajeeb Roy, a Bengali Hindu tea plantation manager in Shillong. The marriage was said to have been an abusive relationship, which ended in a divorce.

Mary Roy was denied her share of the familial property due to the Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916. She sued her brother after her father's death for equal inheritance. In the case Mary Roy Etc v State of Kerala and Others that was heard by the Supreme Court of India, she won the case against her brother.

Mary Roy Etc v State of Kerala and Others is considered a landmark case in the Supreme Court of India that brought equal rights for Syrian Christian women in India as their male siblings on matters of inheritance. The women of Mary Roy's Syrian Christian community could not inherit property because of the Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916. As laid out in this act, Syrian Christian women could inherit property but would only be paid the lesser of one quarter of a son's inheritance or 5,000 rupees as what was referred to as sthreedhanam (transl. dowry). Contesting this, Roy filed the case against George Isaac, her brother, after the demise of her father P. V. Isaac in 1960. She sued her brother to gain equal access to the inheritance left to them. The lower court at first rejected her plea. The property was divided into two parts—the Kottayam property which was spread over two locales and another at Nattakom Grama Panchayath. The case was considered a landmark case for the reason it fought for equal property rights for Syrian Christian women.