Indian Supreme Court lawyers Arundhati Katju and Menaka Guruswamy, both also NLSIU Bangalore graduates, have been selected for the prestigious US-based TIME magazine’s list of 100 most influential people of 2019, cited in particular for their work in overturning section 377.
Guruswamy, who was recently elevated as a senior advocate by the Supreme Court, is a 1997 NLS graduate and holds an LLM from Harvard Law School and a BCL and D Phil from Oxford University.
Katju too is an NLSIU grad with an LLM from Columbia Law School. She had worked with India’s National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to draft the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
Both represented a number of members of the LGBTQ community before the Supreme Court, and are two of a large number of other advocates who represented a variety of petitioners fighting in the Supreme Court and high courts in the various section 377 petitions.
Guruswamy argued eloquently and at length in the Supreme Court constitution bench case, and Katju had been involved with the case since 2012.
We don’t normally cover magazine power lists or rankings, even if they include lawyers (from NLS or otherwise), but TIME’s is probably one of best-known such lists world wide. And as far as we’re aware, they are the first practising Indian lawyers to make it to the list, which is usually quite US-centric and includes influencers, both positive and negative, and tends to be dominated by political leaders (Donald Trump made the cut this year, obviously), billionaires (such as Mark Zuckerberg), icons (such as Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Michelle Obama) and artists (quite a few US A-list blockbuster actors on this list).
The two lawyers were cited in the “pioneers” category (full list here).
Actor Priyanka Chopra wrote some of the following words about them for TIME:
This landmark judgment, overturning a 157-year-old law, was the outcome of a long-term campaign orchestrated by two amazing public-interest litigators, Arundhati Katju and Menaka Guruswamy. The fight has been hard. The LGBTQ+ community has battled on both legal and social fronts for decades-—for their fundamental rights, for privacy, for dignity, for safety and for love.
Armed with a well-planned strategy that went beyond their well-researched legal arguments, Arundhati and Menaka became beacons of hope for the Indian LGBTQ+ community. Their perseverance and commitment led an entire community to a historic win by humanizing their struggles and giving them the freedom to love. As the Chief Justice said, “Constitutional morality cannot be martyred at the altar of social morality.”
Arundhati and Menaka have helped take a giant step for LGBTQ+ rights in the world’s largest democracy. In their committed fight for justice, they have shown us that we as a society must continue to make progress, even after laws are changed, and that we must make an effort to understand, accept and love.
It is who we are as people.
Comments
@ without intending to take away from their stupendous work and outstanding achievement, I would like to mention, that the work was done by many more independent/ additional lawyers - who worked tirelessly for years even before these 2 took up 2 of the 4-5 contemporaneous petitions.
@ Even in the 2 petitions they were involved in, the bulk of the drafting, research, and ground work for one was done by a boutique law firm
@also in these two petitions, many other seniors also argued the matter.
It would be nice to see the two of them give some credit to the others, and not portray that it was just the two of them. Again I don’t intend to take away from their achievement, but this uni dimensional narrative from MG just seems unfair to the others lawyers, some of whom are also known to us.
This sort of unfounded arrogance when faffing is why people tend to dislike NLS, NALSAR, and NUJS. The latter two will probably have alum doing great things too, it's barely been 15 years since the first batches graduated.
PS: I am not on the list - Gaga is- may be for her ‘I just have to say, as a woman in music, it is really hard to be taken seriously as a musician and a songwriter’ speech.
People in the know wonder how 5 years of practice and a side mention on some path breaking cases (as in not even the lead counsel) gets you not only the seniors gown but also time magazine mentions.
From public information atleast their is little about their accomplishments that define this. It appears to be a more a case of what little they have accomplished being what they are, reducing them to mere figureheads for a cause.
Pity. There are so many more deserving candidates.
Oh and NLSIU people who actually know, who do better than beat their chest in pride.
"619. Before concluding, I acknowledge the efforts of the counsel for the petitioners and interveners who appeared in this case — Mr Mukul Rohatgi, Mr Arvind Datar, Mr Ashok Desai, Mr Anand Grover, Mr Shyam Divan, Mr C.U. Singh and Mr Krishnan Venugopal, Senior Counsel; and Mr Saurabh Kirpal, Dr Menaka Guruswamy and Ms Arundhati Katju, and Ms Jayna Kothari, learned counsel. Their erudition has enabled us to absorb, as we reflected and wrote. Mr Tushar Mehta, learned Additional Solicitor General appeared for the Union of India. We acknowledge the assistance rendered by the counsel for the interveners who opposed the petitioners."
The write up in TIME gives MG and AK the entire credit for the verdict, whereas it is plain for all to see that while they were one part of it, there are a large number of others - senior counsel, junior counsel, unnamed counsel, not to mention the clients who had the courage to fight - who made this possible as a team effort. Yet, the world sees that the credit has gone only to 2 individuals and I have yet to come across any statement by them clarifying that others also deserve some of the spotlight. Very disappointing. Just shows that these lists are to be taken with a pinch of salt, and as is the way of the world, a large number of unsung heros are left behind in the dust.
As someone rightly said recently, 'perform or perish' has been replaced by 'promote or perish'. I can't think of a better application than in the case of MG. I don't know her personally and have nothing against her, but it is just amazing to see how a media friendly persona can turn a person into a blazing achiever in an arena where she is not even present. In close to 2 decades of practice I can count on my fingers the number of times I have seen her in court. Yet here she is in the limelight again, being painted as a litigating genius. It still bamboozles me how the Supreme Court judges in their infinite wisdom designated her as senior advocate, when so many other deserving candidates from that list of 105 names were left out.
That said, as far as AK is concerned, at least she has been a genuine practitioner for a long time, her current sabbatical notwithstanding, and is good at her work.
This is so insulting to the many activists who fought against 377 for so many years. There is a limit to hogging credit.
https://www.queerty.com/arundhati-katju-menaka-guruswamy-decriminalized-gay-sex-billion-people-literally-20190611
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/menaka-guruswamy-arundhati-katju-section-377-lawyers-gay-couple-2237281.html
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/lawyers-menaka-guruswamy-arundhati-katju-the-face-of-historic-section-377-verdict-reveal-theyre-a-couple/articleshow/70304218.cms
https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/menaka-guruswamy-arundhati-katju-sec377-verdict--146532