Colin Gonsalves is the Founder of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), India’s leading public interest law group, providing pro bono legal aid to the marginalised. Mr. Gonsalves was designated as a Senior Advocate by the Bombay High Court in 2000.  He was presented with the “International Human Rights Award” by the American Bar Association in 2005, awarded the “Mother Teresa Memorial Award” for Social Justice “in recognition of remarkable contribution in legal services addressing human rights” in 2010, conferred an Award of the Centre for Reproductive Rights, New York, 2015 – for Pioneering and Exemplary Leadership in Advancing Women’s Reproductive Rights and Social Justice in India and he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award 2017.

He has led several cases, including the “Right to Food” case in the Supreme Court, which ordered subsidized grain for 700 million poor persons, the recent Manipur ethnic violence case, the Chardham climate change case in the Himalayas, a series of cases on abortion rights, farmers rights, social activists wrongly incarcerated, demolition of houses of the poor, cases during the pandemic of migrant workers who were forced to walk hundreds of kms to their villages, social boycott of dalits in Haryana, and so on.