Menaka Guruswamy: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India}}

|| birth_place = [[Hyderabad]], [[India]]<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/200917/hyderabads-menaka-guruswamy-gets-rare-honour-at-rhodes.html|title=Hyderabad’s Menaka Guruswamy gets rare honour at Rhodes|work=Deccan Chronicle|date=20 September 2017|access-date=19 May 2020}}</ref>

'''Menaka Guruswamy''' (born 27 November 1974) is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India. She was the B.R. Ambedkar Research Scholar and Lecturer at [[Columbia Law School]], New York from 2017 to 2019.<ref name="law.columbia.edu">{{Cite web|url=https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/menaka-guruswamy|title=Menaka Guruswamy, Research Scholar and Lecturer in Law|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> Guruswamy has been visiting faculty at [[Yale Law School]], [[New York University School of Law]] and [[University of Toronto Faculty of Law]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.law.utoronto.ca/faculty-staff/distinguished-visitors/menaka-guruswamy|title=Dr. Menaka Guruswamy, Faculty Profile|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> She is known for having played a significant role in many landmark cases before the Supreme Court, including the [[Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India|Section 377 case]], [[T. S. R. Subramanian v. Union of India|the bureaucratic reforms case]], [[2013 Indian helicopter bribery scandal|the Augusta Westland bribery case]], the [[Salwa Judum]] case, and the Right to Education case.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.prsindia.org/theprsblog/supreme-court-upholds-25-reservation-private-schools|title=Supreme Court upholds 25% reservation in private schools|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> She is assisting the Supreme Court as Amicus Curie in the case pertaining to the alleged extrajudicial killings of 1,528 persons in [[Manipur]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.orfonline.org/research/human-rights-and-the-military/|title=Human rights and the military|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref>

In April 2016, Guruswamy along with a team of lawyers including Arundhati Katju and Saurabh Kripal filed a petition on behalf of five LGBT petitioners led by Navtej Singh Johar challenging the constitutionality of [[Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code]], 1860. The petition was the first instance that LGBT Indians actually filed writ petitions alleging violation of their fundamental rights.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/24/our-lives-should-be-lived-in-the-sun-the-couple-fighting-to-legalise-gay-sex-in-india|title=Our lives should be lived in the sun’: the couple fighting to legalise gay sex in India - The Guardian|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> Guruswamy also appeared on behalf of petitioners from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and in the landmark judgment, the 5-judge Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court read down Section 377  as not applicable to consenting adults.

Guruswamy is the first Indian and second woman to have her portrait hung at the Milner Hall in [[Rhodes House]] at the University of Oxford.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/09/19/possibly-for-the-first-time-an-indian-woman-scholars-portrait-will-hang-at-rhodes-house-in-oxford_a_23214329/|title=For The First Time, An Indian Woman Scholar's Portrait Hangs At Rhodes House In Oxford|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> In January 2019, her name featured in Foreign Policy's 100 Global Thinkers List, along with other prominent personalities such as Michelle Obama, Kofi Annan and Jeff Bezos.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2019-global-thinkers/|title=A Decade of Global Thinkers|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> On International Women's Day in March 2019, Guruswamy was honored by Harvard Law School as Women Inspiring Change in a portrait exhibition.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://barandbench.com/sudha-bharadwaj-menaka-guruswamy-harvard-international-womens-day-portrait-exhibit-2019/|title=Sudha,Menaka feature in Harvard Int'national Women's Day Portrait|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> In April 2019, her name featured in Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, along with other prominent personalities such as [[Arundhati Katju]], [[Xi Jinping]], [[Nancy Pelosi]], and [[Hasan Minhaj]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567711/arundhati-katju-menaka-guruswamy|title=Arundhati Katju and Menaka Guruswamy, Time 100|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref>  She has also been featured in Forbes India's List of Women-Power Trailblazer, 2019.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.forbesindia.com/lists/2019-w-power-trailblazers/1759/1|title=Menaka Guruswamy: Taking the law into her hands|last=|first=|date=|website=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref>