If the Appointments Committee of Cabinet gives its nod, Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising will become the country’s first woman Additional Solicitor General (ASG). Sources in the Union Law Ministry told The Indian Express that her name is among those cleared by the ministry for the post.

“We expect the formal orders to be issued before the Supreme Court opens on July 6,” said a source. Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati is said to have pushed her case.

Jaising, 59, already has a first to her credit—she was the first woman ever to be designated a Senior Advocate by the Bombay High Court in 1986. Appointment as ASG, lawyers say, would be a fitting reward for her tireless battles against mistreatment of women.

Jaising fought and won the famous Mary Roy case, which led to Syrian Christian women in Kerala getting equal inheritance rights. She is also remembered for arguing the case of former Punjab IAS officer Rupan Deol Bajaj, who had accused the then Punjab DGP K P S Gill of outraging her modesty. She also successfully argued cases of Hindu mothers to be the natural guardians of their minor children and the right of Christian women to get divorce on the grounds of cruelty or desertion.

As a social and human rights activist, Jaising was associated with many citizen’s initiatives to check human rights abuses in terrorism-hit Punjab in early ’80s and ’90s.

Reacting to reports of her being considered as the next ASG, Jaising said: “I have also heard about the appointment but am yet to receive the appointment letter.” While refusing to confirm or deny her appointment, Vahanvati said: “She has stood up for the rights of the women. She is a very competent and able lawyer.”