Ms Thulasi K. Raj
Practising Lawyer
Supreme Court of India and Kerala High Court
Thulasi K. Raj is a visiting fellow under the Indian Equality Law Fellowship program at Melbourne Law School. Her research paper focuses on horizontal discrimination under the Indian Constitution. Traditionally, much of the discussion on the law of equality has been state centric. However, several constitutional provisions provide significant scope for horizontal application of the right to equality. Thulasi argues that these provisions are sufficient to capture various cases of non-state discrimination in housing, employment, entry to public places etc. Her endeavour therefore, is to develop a comprehensive theory of anti-discrimination that is both constitutionally legitimate and adequate to address private discrimination in India.
She is a lawyer practising at the High Court of Kerala and the Supreme Court of India and works on civil and constitutional cases. She appeared (jointly) in Joseph Shine v. Union of India for the petitioner before the Indian Supreme Court where the court held criminalising adultery to be unconstitutional.
She has completed her Masters in Law from University College London. Her research interests are constitutional law and theory, law and gender and comparative human rights. She frequently writes newspaper articles on relevant socio-legal issues.
Feedback on Program
"The IEL Fellowship was one of its kind. For me, the fact that the programme was open not only to Phd students or full time academics, but also early career lawyers is an immensely useful component. It was an exception to fellowships which usually exclude lawyers. I sincerely hope the IELF keeps us this tradition enabling more professionals to apply in the upcoming years. The model of the programme is promising, with opportunity to interact with the supervisor, with other fellows and take part in the events. The academic environment it offered was inspiring. I am sure that the IELF will make a significant contribution to constitutional scholarship."