Mary Roy, an educator and a women's rights activist, on whose petition the Supreme court delivered the landmark judgment against the Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916 to ensure Christian women an equal share in family property, died after a brief illness here on Thursday. She was 89 and is survived by two children, son Lalit Roy and daughter Arundhati Roy, renowned writer and activist who won the 1997 Man Booker prize.
Tumultous life
Born to a Syrian Christian family in 1933, Ms. Roy was the daughter of P.V. Isaac, an entomologist who had trained in England. Starting from Delhi, she had a cosmopolitan education and graduated from the Queen's Mary college in Chennai.
