Biography

Dipika Jain is Professor of Law, Vice Dean (Research), Vice Dean (Clinical Legal Education) and the Director of the Centre for Justice, Law and Society at Jindal Global Law School (JGLS), India since 2009. She was a visiting faculty at Transnational Law Institute at Kings College London from 2017-2021 and visting scholar at various Institutions including University of Oxford, Melbourne, Max Plank among others.

She pursued her B.A. in Political Science (Hons) from Lady Shri Ram College and LL.B from Faculty of Law, Delhi University. She received the Canadian Institute of Health Research Fellowship Award in Health Law & Policy, 2006 to pursue a Master’s Degree at Dalhousie University, Canada. She earned her LL.M from Harvard Law School in 2009.

She completed  Ph.D in Law from University of Frankfurt under Prof. Gunter Frankenberg in Critical Constitutionalism with a distinction (Summa Cum Laude) in 2024.

In 2018, she was designated as the first Research Associate Professor at JGLS.

Her research has been cited by the Supreme Court in the landmark decision of Navtej Johar v. Union of India (2018) and X v Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Givt of NCT of Delhi (2022) on the fear of prosecution and decriminalistaion of abortion. In May 2023, she was cited in the “Sensitisation Module for the Judiciary on LGBTIQA+ Community” published by the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India, chaired by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud on her coneptualistaion of legislative violence in the co-authored articled titled, Unjust Citizenship: The Law that Isn’t.

In 2020, her research on abortion was cited in the legislative debate on abortion laws in the Indian Parliament.

She teaches legal methods, jurisprudence, family law, constitutional theory and self designed electives including  Law and Social Movemnet; Law, Desire and Popular Culture; Health Law; Postcolonial Studies; Reading Foucault, Trans Jutsice and Reproductive Justice among others.

Her research is at the intersection of Law and Marginalization. She writes on Minor Jurisprudence, Postcolonial, Queer and Intersectional Feminism, Public Health Law, Critical Legal Theory, Law and Social Movements, Reproductive Justice, Legal Education and Critical Pedagogies and Empirical Legal Studies. She is currently working on her forthcoming monograph on Constitutional Law and Politics, which is also her doctoral work.

She is the co-editor  of the book titled, Law, Culture and Queer Politics in Neoliberal Times Volume published by Zubaan/University of Chicago Press. Volume I  and II.

At JGLS, she is the recipient of several teaching excellence and research excellence awards since 2009.

Her recent work appears in the Feminist Theory (forthcoming),  Journal of Human Rights, Violence and Gender, Healthcare, Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, Columbia Journal of Law and Gender,  Statute Law Review (Oxford), Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, Harvard Journal of Law and Gender; Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law and Justice; American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law; Houston Journal of International Law and prestigious Indian journals including Seminar and Economics Political Weekly, among many other journals.

She is the receipent of a research grant from JGU Research Grant Committee on Law and Social Movemts in Global South; from ARROW on legal regulation of Abortion in Asia and SRHM on Autonomy and Medical Ethics.

She has advised the Law Commission of India on various reports on Shared Custody, Animal Welfare Law and Maintenance Laws. She has consulted for the UNDP; Centre for Reproductive Rights (New York); and IPAS Development; ARROW, Pratigya Campaign, SRHM on Reproductive Justice, Digital Health and Family Law. She was a member of the Committee that drafted the Rules for the Transgender Persons (Protesction of Rights) Act, 2019.

As the Director of CJLS, she has addressed  various barriers in access to justice for marginalized persons. CJLS had crafted policy interventions and advocacy with parliamentarians, legislative and judicial interventions; facilitated consultations with social movements, grassroots movements and civil society; organized workshops on critical pedagogies, and conducted legal empowerment workshops and courses for activists, professionals and students. She has collaborated with  transgender  and gender variant activists to facilitate national consultations; organized the first-of-its-kind residential certificate course on the rights of transgender, intersex and gender-diverse persons, and conducted exciting symposiums and conferences in collaboration with organizations and institutions such as the Center for Reproductive Rights, ARC International, Cornell Law School and the University of Connecticut among others.

She has advised the Law Commission of India on various reports on Shared Custody, Animal Welfare Law and Maintenance Laws. She has also served as an International consultant with the UNDP on Sharia Law in; Centre for Reproductive Rights (New York);  IPAS Development on Reproductive Justice and UNDP India on Digital Health.

As a founding faculty at Jindal Global Law School, Prof. Jain has played an instrumental role in setting up the Law School, which includes serving as  the Head of its  Students Affairs, Academic Affairs Office and Recruitment Chair. She is currently the Chairperson of the Academic Review Board and member of the JGU Research and Ethics Board. Before joining the academia, she was lawyer with Human Rights Law Network. She conceptualized  developed, managed and coordinated the national programs on legal aid for People Living with HIV/AIDS while specifically leading a large team of lawyers and social workers across more than 10 HRLN offices across India. During this time, she worked on precedent setting public interest litigations in the Supreme Court of India including Sampurna Bahrua vs. Union of India (petitioning for the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 in fifteen State in the country. The Act was amended as a result of this petition.) the Right to Food and Access to Antiretroviral Drugs Case.