Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy's iconic mother Mary Roy dies

Kottayam: Mary Roy who was in her own right a noted educator and champion of gender equality alongside being the mother of author Arundhati Roy has died. She was 89.

Mary won the landmark 1986 Supreme Court case for women's equal right over family property in Kerala's Syrian Christian community.

She founded the Pallikoodam School, previously Corpus Christi High School, in Kottayam,according to The Indian Express.

Born in Kottayam to the England-trained P V Isaac who later became entomologist at Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Bihar, Mary moved to Kolkata after education in Delhi and Madras.

Here she met her future husband Rajeeb Roy and the couple moved to Assam where Rajeeb managed a tea estate and they have two children: Lalith and Arundhati.

After separating from Rajeeb Roy, Mary returned to Kerala with her children, before moving to Ooty in Tamil Nadu in her father's cottage.

Her eldest brother Isaac asked her to vacate the house claiming to be the inheritor of the property, triggering a legal battle that went on for 24 years.

Mary Roy came out challenging the Travancore Succession Act, 1916 and Cochin Succession Act, 1921 that her community followed.

These Acts made women eligible for one quarter of the son's share or Rs 5,000, whichever was less, if the father died without having made a will.

Mary argued that members of her community elsewhere in the country were governed by provisions of the Indian Succession Act, 1925, and moved against her brother George Isaac.

In 2010 following the Supreme Court's judgment, there came the final decree in favour of Mary and she got a share of the family property.

"The fight was not for a piece of land, but to win women's rights guaranteed by the Constitution," she was quoted as reacting following the historic legal victory.