Feminist Judgment Project India

Call for Proposals

The Feminist Judgment Project India imagines the possibilities of collaborative writing of
alternate judgments for several Indian cases across a broad range of legal issues having a
significant bearing on women. At the heart of the project are a set of basic questionscan
one formulate a distinctively feminist judicial practice? If so, what are the limitations to that
approach? In what manner does this approach differ from the common law approach the
court takes? Neither the practice of academic rewriting of judgment is new i, nor is
specifically the practice of feminist rewriting of judgments. The Feminist Judgment Project
India borrows from the sister projects in Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and
USA where feminist academics, lawyers, activists have written alternate versions of
judgments originally authored by judges.

In all these projects, the central attempt has been to rewrite court judgments that could have
been written better or written differently by using a feminist lens. In 2008, several Canadian
feminist scholars, activists and lawyers set up the Womens Court of Canada, a collaborative
projectii to rewrite Canadian Supreme Court decisions on Section 15, the equality clause in
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. The goal of this shadow judgment project was to
see what substantive equality could look like in judicial expression. The Canadian
experiment was repeated in UKiii Australiaiv. Fifty academics, legal practitioners and activists
rewrote twenty-three significant cases in English law. Similarly, thirty-one feminist legal
academics rewrote legal decisions in Australia from a feminist perspective. There have been
similar shadow judgement writing projects by feminist law professors in USA v and New
Zealand vi. In Ireland and Northern Ireland vii, the methodology has considered the specific
Irish and Northern Irish challenges and aspirations and consequently themes of collective
identity have interacted and intersected with the theme of womens experience with law.

The India project too will serve as a shadow judgment writing project by bridging the
distance between feminist theory and practice where we will reimagine the role of the judge
to adjudicate differently by maintaining fidelity to the same constitutional and legal rules
that bind her. For example, what are the ways in which the Supreme Court of India could
have reasoned in Tukaram v State of Maharashtra (prosecutrix credibility in rape trial) or
Githa Hariharan v Reserve Bank of India (guardianship rights of a Hindu mother during the
lifetime of the father) to advance a jurisprudence of gender justice? Could one imagine how
a rewritten judgment in State of Bombay v Narasu Appa Mali (holding that personal law was
immune from constitutional scrutiny) would look like if women were central to its
reasoning? Indeed, could we reimagine and rewrite judgments that uphold womens
interest; the so-called good judgments, like Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (laying down
guidelines to address sexual harassment at workplace) or Shayara Bano v Union of India
(invalidating instant triple talaq)? Or what would those judgments that interpret facially
neutral provisions look like when rewritten from a feminist position? What are the feminist
critiques that would inform and accompany such judgment rewriting process? These are just
a few ideas to probe the radical possibilities of this project.
We imagine that the alternative judgments or missing judgments or dissenting opinions
will reveal the extent to which cases could (and should) have been decided while remaining
faithful to legal and constitutional limitations. We invite contributions from interested
collaborators in two categories:

1. Judgments: Those who are interested to (re)write judgments (6000-8000 words),

please submit a proposal of 300-500 words, indicating the name of the case you wish
to write on, and briefly explaining how the case would benefit from a feminist
analysis.
2. Commentaries: Those who are interested to write commentaries (3000-4000
words), please indicate in a 300-500 worded proposal, the case for which you want
to write the commentary explaining why you think such case merits a feminist
analysis.

The following is an indicative list of judgments that could benefit from a feminist rewriting:

1. Dadaji Bhikaji vs Rukhmabai (1885) ILR 9 Bom 529

2. Re: Regina Guha vs Unknown 35 Ind Cas 925
3. Tukaram v State of Maharashtra, 1979 SCR (1) 810
4. Mohd. Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum, 1985 SCR (3) 844
5. Vishaka v State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241
6. SR Batra v Taruna Batra, AIR 2007 SC 1118
7. Raj Bala v State of Haryana, (2016) 1 SCC 463
8. Githa Hariharan v Reserve Bank of India, (1999) 2 SCC 228
9. State of Bombay v Narasu Appa Mali, AIR 1952 Bom 84
10. Sowmithri Vishnu v Union of India, 1985 AIR 1618
11. Sharad Birdhi Chand Sarda v State of Maharashtra, 1984 AIR 1622
12. Suchita Srivastava v Chandigarh Administration, (2009) 9 SCC 1
13. Air India v Nargesh Meerza, 1981 AIR 1829
14. Suresh Kumar Koushal v Naz Foundation, (2014) 1 SCC 1
15. CBI v. Sakru Mahagu Binjewar MANU/MH/0893/2010
16. Anuj Garg vs Hotel Association of India (AIR 2008 SC 663)
17. Preeti Gupta and Anr. v. State of Jharkhand & Anr. (2010) 7 SCC. 667
18. Rajesh Sharma vs State of Uttar Pradesh 2017 SCC OnLine SC 821
19. Phul Singh vs State Of Haryana 1980 SCR (1) 589
20. Bharwad Bhogibhai Hirjibhai v. State of Gujarat , AIR 1983 SC 753
21. Samar Ghosh vs. Jaya Ghosh (2007) 4 SCC 511
22. Indra Sarma v. V.K.V.Sarma. 2013(14)SCALE448
23. D. Velusamy v. D. Patchaiammal, (2010) 10 SCC 469
24. Harvinder Kaur vs Harmander Singh Choudhry AIR 1984 Delhi 66
25. Raja v State of Karnataka (Cri. Appeal No. 1767 of 2011)
26. Sahyog Mahila Mandal and Anr. Versus State of Gujarat and Ors. (2004) 2 GLR 1764
27. Narendra v. K. Meena, 2016 SCC OnLine SC 1114
28. Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug v. Union of India, (2011) 4 SCC 454
29. Asokan.K.M vs State of Kerala WP(Crl.).No. 25 of 2016
30. Shayara Bano v Union of India WP (C) No. 118/2016
The judgments may be written by a single individual or jointly by two or more authors in the
collaborative collegial practice of judgment-writing. The cases can be from any level
including trial court, tribunals, High Court, Supreme Court etc. Potential contributors may
find a sample rewritten judgment here --
https://www.academia.edu/29303490/Righting_Sarla_Mudgal_v_Union_of_India_and_Othe
rs

The Feminist Judgment Project India will lead to an edited collection of judgments along with
commentaries, published by the end of 2019.

Those who are interested in contributing and becoming part of the project should send their
proposals to Jhuma Sen at fjpindia@gmail.com by 5th November 2017. Contributors must
commit to attending two workshops in 2018, details of which shall be notified later upon
acceptance of the proposals. For further details, please visit the Feminist Judgment Project,
India website.

i Balkin, Jack M. "What Brown v. Board of Education should have said." New York: New (2001).
ii Majury, Diana. "Introducing the Women's Court of Canada." Can. J. Women & L. 18 (2006): 1.
iii Hunter, Rosemary, Clare McGlynn, and Erika Rackley, eds. Feminist judgments: From theory to

practice. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.

iv Douglas, Heather, et al., eds. Australian feminist judgments: Righting and rewriting law.

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

v Stanchi, Kathryn M., Bridget J. Crawford, and Linda L. Berger, eds. Feminist judgments: rewritten

opinions of the United States Supreme Court. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
vi Powell, R. "Showing judges how to walk the walk: the Feminist Judgments Project Aotearoa."

(2016).
vii Enright, Mirad, Julie McCandless, and Aoife O'Donoghue, eds. Northern/Irish Feminist

Judgments: Judges' Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017.