Roy who won a case in the Supreme Court in 1986 to struck
down the Travancore Christian Succession Act (TCSA) which made applicable the
Indian Succession Act (ISA) that give equal rights to sons and daughters to
all, received the possession of her share of land last week.
"My daughter (Arundhati Roy) and son Lalit have told
me that they were not interested in it. Now the proceeds from the cursed
property worth Rs18 million will go to charity," Roy said. "We are
glad that after nearly 50 years this saga of litigation has come to an
end."
Talking to a group of reporters at her residence inside a
10-acre campus of the Pallikkodam School that she established on her own, she
said she had given a power of attorney to her son to execute her decision.
"Neither me nor my elder sister Molly Joseph need my
father's land. We have both been fighting for a principle-equality of women
before the law," she said. "Women like me got justice after the apex
court verdict more than two decades back. I had to wait another 26
years."
In 1965, Roy was told to get out of a cottage in Ootty
which had belonged to her father where she lived with her small children
Arundhati, 3, and Lalit, 5, and she was told that according to the TCSA,
"a daughter shall receive one-fourths the share of a son or Rs 5,000
whichever is less."
She was just back from Kolkatta after a failed marriage
and struggling to meet both ends. She was able to retain the cottage, as the
TCSA was not applicable in Tamil Nadu.
She then decided she would get equal right under the
Indian Constitution and she would fight the humiliation heaped upon her and
other women. A Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Supreme Court in
1984 and two years later the apex court passed the historic judgment.
All Indians are now governed by the Indian Succession Act
which gives equal rights to sons and daughters. But a will written by the
father overrides the law of the land which comes into effect only intestate
succession.
The mother had a life estate which gave her right over
all her husband's property till her death. She died in 2000 and after that her
brother George Isaac resorted to innumerable adjournments and appeals to the
Kerala High Court to prevent the partition but to no avail.
The litigation came to an end last week when a civil
court in Kottayam assigned the property to her.
Isaac sold the ancestral house and half the property for
Rs50mn. The remaining half is divided between the two sisters and their late
brother John's wife who is a Canadian. "Today everyone should be happy.
The land has now come into our possession with no further impediments,"
she said.
There were a few shops, which were demolished after the
sisters got its possession. George was also present there to witness the
demolition of the structures that he built.
"I told my brother that this is end of an era for
me. He said it's just a beginning," she said.
At 77, and devoted to her school, which is one of the
best in India, she says she has just started another legal battle for the
common good. She has engaged a lawyer in New Delhi to file a petition in the
Supreme Court to give strict strictures to civic councils on solid waste
management.
