Judicial Meanderings in Patriarchal Thickets: Litigating Sex Discrimination in India

This essay spotlights judicial twists on the issue of sex discrimination over the last six decades through an examination of reported cases from the high courts and the Supreme Court of India. These cases by themselves do not exhaust the field of non-discrimination, but point to one site where there have been protracted deliberations. This sociological reading looks at the ethnographic detail that texts present, the process and points of deliberation and contestation among petitioners, respondents and courts, and the multiple implications of jurisprudential resolution for genderbased discrimination. It follows the plural threads of reasoning with respect to women's status, position, vulnerabilities and rights, and attempts to understand their ideological underpinnings.