Lily Thomas (lawyer)
| Lily Thomas | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Lily Isabel Thomas 1927 (age 90–91) Kottayam, British India |
| Residence | Delhi, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | Madras University |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Known for | Co-petitioner in Representation of the People Act case |
Lily Thomas is an Indian lawyer who has initiated improvement and change to existing laws by filing petitions in India's highest court and regional courts. Thomas' petitions have resulted in changes to laws to prevent convicted politicians getting elected, the addition of a new marriage law and protections for parliamentarians. Thomas has been hailed most notably for petitioning to amend the Representation of the People Act.
Lily hails from Kottayam and grew up in Trivandrum. She had joined Madras High Court in 1955, under which she studied the LLM course which was completed in 1959. Thomas belongs to the first generation of women lawyers in India and she is the first woman to complete the LLM course from Madras University.
After obtaining a law degree from Madras University, she started her practice in the Madras High Court. She was the first lady in India to qualify for an LLM degree. In 1960, she moved to Delhi to do a Ph.D but discovered that she was not really cut out for academia. “I realised that I was not competent to do research,” she admitted, “so I started practicing in the Supreme Court”.
Thomas had joined the Supreme Court in 1960. She dropped out of doctorate in law after coming to Delhi and started working where her brother John Thomas was already practising. Lily has been filing petitions since 1964 on different issues such as the validity of 'Advocate-on-Record Examination', sorting out issues of railway employees and case on conversion to Islam for the express purpose of entering into a second marriage in 2000. Thomas has worked on constitutional law, women’s rights and issues of personal liberty. Lily is an advocate in 'OLD LAWYERS CHAMBERS BLOCKS'.
In 2013, at the age of 85, she won a landmark judgement under which members of India's Parliament and members of state legislative bodies, convicted of a crime or in jail, became ineligible to run for elections or hold an elected seat. Prior to this judgment, members of Parliament who were convicted but had filed an appeal could go about their regular business, including being elected and holding seats.
Lily Thomas, along with advocate Satya Narain Shukla had field a Writ petition in the apex court in 2005, challenging a provision of the Representation of the People Act which protects a convicted lawmakers against disqualification on the ground of pendency of appeal against their conviction in the higher courts. On 10 July 2013, a bench of justices A K Patnaik and S J Mukhopadhaya held that, "The only question is about the vires of section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951 and we hold that it is ultra vires and that the disqualification takes place from the date of conviction."
...
Wikipedia