Dr. Sophy K.J.

Sophy K. J. is Associate Professor of Law at the National Law University Delhi. She is currently the Director of Centre for Labour Law Research and Advocacy (CLLRA). Her areas of research interest are Law relating to Labour and Development, Gender and the Law, Legal History and Anthropology.

Sophy was Post-doctoral Fellow in the project, Laws of Social Reproduction, sponsored by European Research Council, anchored by the King’s College of London. She focused her research on ‘Paid Domestic Work. Her subjects of teaching are Labour and development and Legal History at the University.

Sophy had been part of various policy projects on Labour, both with international and national organisations such as International Labour Organisation, Ministry of Labour, Govt. of India, Chattisgarh Govt., Delhi Govt. Law Commission and Human Rights Organsiations. Her focus study on ‘Paid Domestic Work’ during her post-doctoral research, has special link with her policy work which she is part of from 2016. As part of her policy work on domestic workers, she has drafted Private Member Bills, presented in both houses of the Parliament in 2017, titled Domestic Workers Regulation of Work and Social Security Bill, 2017. She is continuing this policy work with the states Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Telengana. Other areas of her policy work includes Rule making for Bonded labourers, drafting policy for ‘the Protection of Early Childhood Care and Development’, uniform legislation for informal sector, assisting in drafting of labour policies for various organisations, etc.. She is also part of assisting litigation in the Supreme Court for the construction workers and domestic workers.  She had been part of various projects such as UNDP-GoI project on “Access to Justice for the marginalised- the construction workers at Noida” and IGSSS project on ‘Impact of the BOCW Act on the Construction Workers in India’. She is also engaged in a Research Project, titled “Strengthening Scheduled Caste (SC) Women participation in Economic, Social and Civic Activities”, in collaboration with the University of Hyderabad.

Sophy has published a book titled ‘Customary Rights of Farmers in Neo-liberal India: Legal and Policy Analysis’ by Oxford University Press in 2021. During her doctoral research, she focused on Farmers’ rights under Plant Variety Law’ to encapsulate the history of policy development in India to extend private property rights to plant varieties and seeds and consequent diverse issues, including migration of cultivators to the cities.

She was speaker in various International Conferences such as Law and Society Conference (2020, 2021), ASLI Conference, LLRN Conference, CALS Conference, Singapore etc. and has been invited as speaker for various national conferences. She is part of visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi. Her publications include peer reviewed Journal articles, Book Chapters, case comments. Op-Eds in newspapers/news magazines and law portals.