Neetika Vishwanath

Neetika is an Indira Gandhi Scholar reading for a DPhil in Criminology. Her DPhil is fully funded by the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at Somerville College. Her doctoral research examines the life of India’s special legislation on sexual offences against children, and is supervised by Professor Carolyn Hoyle and Professor Lucia Zedner.

Trained as a lawyer in India, Neetika holds graduate degrees in law and women’s studies from Harvard Law School and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, respectively. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, Birkbeck, University of London. Neetika is currently on sabbatical from her role as Director (Criminalisation and Punishment) at The Square Circle Clinic, a criminal justice initiative at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. Since 2017, along with three others, Neetika co-led Project 39A and its subsequent transition to The Square Circle Clinic, playing a key role in its evolution into one of India’s foremost centres for pro bono criminal defence litigation and cutting-edge criminal justice research. Prior to this, she provided pro bono legal representation to women and child survivors of sexual and domestic violence as a part of a feminist non-profit organisation in Lucknow, India. Neetika has led significant studies on criminal justice in India, with particular attention to the death penalty, sentencing, and sexual offences.