KAMAL KRISHNA ROY, ALLAHABAD

CATEGORY: GENDER EQUALITY (MALE)

Kamal Krishna Roy joined the Allahabad high court as a social litigation lawyer in 1991 after being enrolled with the Uttar Pradesh Bar Council. He has been active in raising issues through public interest litigation petitions, writ petitions and representations before the commissions as a lawyer.

Beginning his career as a human rights lawyer, he filed a petition and successfully fought for the rights of thousands of women of Uttarakhand who were stopped by the UP Police in the midnight while they were on their way to participate in the agitation for a separate state. Hundreds of these women were allegedly raped, molested and faced excesses at the hands of the police. Roy also filed petitions on the hunger death of women belonging to the Scheduled Castes on the failure of government machinery to provide BPL cards and work for survival. He also filed petitions for the rights of acid attack survivors in UP. He fought and won cases for the rescue and rehabilitation of women workers of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh who were kept as bonded labourers in brick kilns of UP. Several legal interventions were made for the payment of full wages to women workers under the MGNERGA projects. Roy filed petition and freed women from physical, mental, physiological and emotional tortures in the garb of religious ceremonies and blind faith. He also intervened in the matter of fundamental right to education of girls and got them admitted under free quota. He organised and participated in regional, state and national consultations and conferences on women rights.

NOMINATED BY: KENNETH JOHN