Mary Roy (1933 – 1 September 2022) was an Indian educator and women's rights activist known for winning a Supreme Court lawsuit in 1986 against the inheritance law prevalent within the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community of Kerala.
The judgement ensured equal rights for Syrian Christian women as with their male siblings in their ancestral property.
[3] Mary Roy was denied her share of the familial property due to the Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916.
[5] She was the founder-director of Pallikoodam (formerly Corpus Christi High School) at Kalathilpady, a suburb of Kottayam town in the state of Kerala.
While the judgement which was in Roy's favor did not speak about the case as violation Article 14 of the Constitution of India which guaranteed gender equality.
[9] A bill was introduced by P. J. Kurien from the Congress party in the parliament to undo the retrospective application which did not find much support.
[5] Roy was the founder-director of Pallikoodam (formerly Corpus Christi High School) at Kalathilpady, a suburb of Kottayam town in the state of Kerala.
The God of Small Things, written by Arundhati Roy, has a character, Ammu, who was based on her mother Mary.
Mary confirmed she was very similar to the character her daughter wrote, however, she was never involved with a man of lower caste, as was the case in the book.