Lily Thomas is the Malayali attorney whose efforts resulted in the passage of a law barring elected members of parliament from serving if they are found guilty of a crime.
The petition challenging section 8 (4) of the Representation of the People Act of 1951 was brought by Lilly Isabel Thomas, a member of the Kuthukallungal family in Changanassery, and it was her efforts that led to the supreme court’s decision in 2013.
She made the case that lawmakers in the parliament, whose primary duty is to pass laws, should not be crafting legislation on behalf of criminals.
Lilly, a Madras University ML graduate, began working for the Supreme Court in 1968. It’s interesting to note that she started her legal profession by petitioning the supreme court directly.
Her first petition aimed to challenge the Supreme Court’s requirement that a lawyer must pass the ‘Advocates on Record’ exam in order to file a petition with the top court. However, Lilly dropped the lawsuit.
When delivering the judgment, former Chief Justice P B Gajendragadkar said that the petitioner did not need to put in even a tenth of the amount of labour that she had in this instance to be eligible for the test. Lilly complied. She put a lot of effort into her studies, passed the test, and even began working as a Supreme Court attorney.
Lilly, a tenacious individual, had been on the government’s radar during the Emergency era. Following her suit, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unlawful for Hindu males to remarry after converting to a different religion and divorcing their first spouse.
In December 2019, she passed away at the age of 91.
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition and a Wayanad-based Congress MP, was recently expelled from the Lok Sabha after receiving a two-year prison term in a defamation case.
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