Pro bono public interest writ reveals heart-rending living conditions of widows in India

The National Commission for Women (NCW), India recently submitted its survey report to the Supreme Court of India on the neglected condition of widows living in India. The NCW conducted this survey after an order was issued by the Supreme Court of India that accepted a pro bono writ petition filed by Ravindra Bana, a senior practising counsel at the Supreme Court and Founder Director of the Environment & Consumer Protection Foundation (ECPFO).

The writ petition was filed by Ravindra Bana on behalf of ECPFO as a Public Interest Litigation, based on a newspaper report titled White Shadows of Vrindavan that highlighted the deplorable conditions of widows who are driven out of their homes after the death of their husbands to live the rest of their lives in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. On being approached, the Supreme Court of India immediately admitted the petition and issued notices to the state and central government for their responses. In order to secure fair and detailed information about the status of these widows, the Court requested the NCW to conduct a comprehensive survey on these atrocities committed against women and to submit a report to the Court. The survey report was recently submitted after a delay and will now come up for discussion before the Court in July 2010 when the Court re-opens after its summer break.

Meanwhile, ‘The Times of India’ newspaper has provided some information about this issue, which is available here.

On a related note, the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey, USA, hosted an exhibition titled Beloved Daughters, which explored the lives of dispossessed widows and the challenges confronting women in India. The powerful exhibition consisted of exclusive photographs of Indian women paired with their testimony. A brief news article about the exhibition can be read on the Princeton University website.


Posted by
Anurag Bana
IBA Legal Projects Team

Reducing too business-oriented sentiment from clever lawyer

The corporate world has made the business lawyers too business-oriented, this means that business lawyers would only work for financially lucrative case and not bothering working for pro bono service that would bring some kinds of positive impacts to the community or a society as a whole.

Getting back to the legal education, we as the law students, have been taught to better the society and to protest against any phenomenon that we believe will bring negative impacts to the society. And indeed, we have been very active in seeing the society in a critical way and devoting our brain to bring in the good into the society.

The hectic corporate world has almost totally changed everything, as business lawyers become too busy with lucrative business cases and they have to fight day and night for the clients, leaving with no time to give some helps to the society they are living in.

As a law student and legal adviser, I feel that lawyer or legal practitioner would be the most qualified and efficient person, if he/she is the one who does the legally systematic thinking to clean the defects, whether such the defects are related or not related to legal aspect, in the society; will the politicians, economists, students, the public, etc, can positively rectify the society in term of legal aspects better than us?

What I am saying here, is that I just wish to suggest to all clever lawyers in the world to consider pro bono work for their society or any society as another piece of cake after work.

Posted by Vicheka Lay
Legal Consultant, Cambodia