Executive Steering Committee
Dr. Anup Surendranath
Executive Director
Anup is the Executive Director of Project 39A. He is a Professor of Law and SK Malik Chair Professor on Access to Justice at the National Law University, Delhi where he teaches courses on constitutional law, legal methods, jurisprudence and comparative rights adjudication. He was invited by the Supreme Court of India to serve as the Deputy Registrar (Research) and was on deputation to the court between May 2014 to August 2015. Anup is also a member of the Advisory Council at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford. Anup completed his legal education from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad (2001-06) and the University of Oxford (2007-12).
Maitreyi Misra
Director | Death Penalty Mitigation
Director | Mental Health & Criminal Justice
Maitreyi heads Project 39A’s work on mental health and criminal justice along with leading the death penalty mitigation team. She graduated in Law from the Symbiosis Law School, Pune in 2010. She holds a Masters in Law from the New York University. She was an International Law and Human Rights Fellow as part of which she worked with the Association for Civil Rights in Tel Aviv, Israel. Before joining Project 39A in 2014, Maitreyi worked with Mr. Anand Grover, Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and assisted him in his work as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.
Neetika Vishwanath
Director | Sentencing
Neetika heads Project 39A’s work on sentencing. She graduated in Law from Christ College, Bangalore in 2012. Neetika also has a Master of Arts degree in Women's Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and the LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School. Before joining Project 39A in 2016, Neetika worked as a women's rights lawyer with a feminist legal advocacy and resource group, Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI) based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
Shreya Rastogi
Director | Death Penalty Litigation
Director | Forensics
Shreya heads Project 39A’s death penalty litigation team and the work on forensics. She graduated in Law from the National Law University, Delhi in June 2013 as a double gold medalist. Before joining Project 39A in 2014, she worked for a year in the corporate and litigation teams at Khaitan & Co., Mumbai. Between 2016 to 2017, she completed her LL.M. from the New York University School of Law, and was awarded the Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellowship for the year 2017-18. Shreya returned to Project 39A after her LL.M. in 2017.
Team
Aathma Sudhir Kumar
Associate | Litigation
Aathma graduated from Gujarat National Law University in 2021. Prior to joining Project 39A in 2024, she worked as a Governance, Policy and Electioneering Consultant at Mantrana Consultancy.
Bhavesh Seth
Associate | Litigation
Bhavesh graduated from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore in 2019. In the past, he has worked as a Law Clerk & Research Assistant in the Supreme Court of India and has practiced at the chambers of Mr. Rishabh Sancheti in courts and tribunals across Delhi. He joined Project 39A in 2022.
C P Shruthi
senior Associate | Mitigation
Shruthi graduated in Sociology from the Delhi University in 2015 and completed her Masters in Social Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2016. Prior to joining Project 39A in 2020, she worked as a consultant with KPMG's Government Advisory wing on a NITI Aayog project evaluating centrally sponsored schemes of various ministries. Shruthi has worked with UNESCO on a project aiming to develop country-specific journalistic guidelines to cover sexual violence and rape in India. She has also been involved in designing and conducting training workshops for Delhi Police officials on gender sensitization.
Dharmender Yadav
Court Clerk & Office Assistant
Dharmender completed his B.A. from the University of Delhi in 2021. He has over thirteen years of clerical legal experience in the District Courts, the High Court of Delhi and the Supreme Court of India. He joined Project 39A in 2016.
Katherine Deborah Joy
Associate | Mitigation
Katherine has previously worked with HAQ: Centre for Child Rights and Bachpan Bachao Andolan. She has experience working with survivors of sexual violence with a focus on mental health. She previously volunteered and interned with organizations like Ekta Parishad, Schizophrenia Research Foundation and People's Watch. Katherine has a degree in Psychology and Sociology, and a Masters in Social Work from Lady Doak College, Madurai.
Komal
Associate | Mitigation
Komal has a degree in BA Applied Psychology from Gargi college, University of Delhi. She has completed her post graduation in MA Applied Psychology from South Campus, University of Delhi. She has previously worked with Manas Foundation as a Mental Health Professional wherein she dealt with cases pertaining to Children in Conflict with law. She has also worked as a Psychologist for the project called “School Mental Health Initiative” which was a collaboration between United Way Delhi, Govt. of NCT Delhi and Institute of Human Behavior & Allied Sciences (IHBAS).
Komal Negi
Financial Assistant
Komal Graduated from Delhi University in 2014. Before joining Project 39A, she worked in the Accounts department of Small Farmer Agribusiness Consortium. She has 8 years experience in the accounting field.
Lakshmi Menon
Associate | Sentencing
Lakshmi graduated from Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad in 2022, and subsequently joined Project 39A as an Associate- Research. As a student, Lakshmi had been a part of the death penalty research fellowship at Project 39A. Through her internships, research, and volunteering work, she has worked on areas such as citizenship, hate speech prevention and labour law. Lakshmi hopes to contribute to the fields of international human rights law and gender justice.
Manasa Ramakrishna
Associate | Litigation
Manasa graduated in law from Jindal Global Law School in 2020. Prior to joining Project 39 A in 2024, she worked in the dispute resolution team at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Mumbai and worked on white collar and commercial litigation.
Maria Divya Sahayaselvan
Associate | Forensics
Maria completed her post-graduation in Forensic Science from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland in 2018 and joined Project 39A in 2022 as an Associate Research (Forensic). Previously, she worked as a Scientific Officer in private forensic science laboratories which cater to the needs of corporates as well as the general public.
Medha Deo
Programme Director | Fair Trial Fellowship
Medha graduated in Law from the Symbiosis Law School, Pune in 2008 and started her career as a Corporate M&A lawyer. She subsequently did her Masters in Law from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in 2014. Before joining Project 39A in 2018, she was working with the Resource Centre for Intervention on Violence Against Women (RCI-VAW) in Mumbai and has been involved in establishing and monitoring government programmes for supporting women survivors of violence in the states of Bihar, Odisha and Maharashtra.
Namrata Sinha
Associate | Mental Health
Namrata graduated from National Law Institute University, Bhopal in 2019. Prior to joining Project 39A in 2022, she practiced as an Advocate in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India under the pupillage of Mr. Gaurav Pachnanda, Senior Advocate.
Pratiksha Basarkar
Senior Associate | Litigation
Pratiksha graduated in Law from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore in 2018. Before joining Project 39A in 2021, she worked in the dispute resolution team at Khaitan & Co, Mumbai, focusing on commercial disputes before courts and tribunals in Mumbai.
Sakshi Jain
Associate | Litigation
Sakshi graduated from Symbiosis Law School, Pune in 2019, following which she finished her LL.M. in Criminal and Constitutional Law, from National Law University Delhi, in 2020. Before joining Project 39A, she practiced litigation, primarily in Criminal and Matrimonial law, in various courts and forums across Delhi- NCR with Adab Singh Kapoor & Associates.
Saloni Ambastha
Associate | Forensics
Saloni graduated from National Law University, Delhi in 2022 and joined the Forensics team at Project 39A. Through her course work, research experiences and internships, she has developed an interest in criminal law, constitutional law and human rights, particularly in the areas of gender and sexual offences.
Sangeeta Sharma
Office Administrator
Sangeeta graduated from the University of Delhi in 2015 and completed her Masters degree in Economics in 2017. She then worked at a U.S based Pharma Company as Senior Administration Executive. Prior to joining Project 39A in 2019, Sangeeta worked with the Ministry of Finance where she handled the administration and finance work.
Zeba Sikora
Senior Associate | Torture
After graduating in law from W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata in 2015, Zeba litigated in Delhi with Wadhwa Law Chambers. She then practiced as a criminal lawyer in Dr. Yug Mohit Chaudhry’s chambers, in Mumbai. There she worked on mitigation, end-stage death penalty cases, criminal appeals and terror trials. Before joining Project 39A in 2021, she completed her Master’s in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.
Snehal Dhote
Associate | Sentencing
Snehal graduated from Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai in 2022 and joined Project 39A as an Associate-Research. An avid mooter, she developed an interest in human rights law, humanitarian law, refugee law, and criminal law by representing her university at different competitions in the Asia-Pacific, and later through internships and research. Before joining Project 39A, she was a research volunteer with Netherlands-based Stichting the London Story where she assessed online hate speech and the human rights situation in India and Europe.
Vijay Badola
Finance Coordinator
Vijay graduated in commerce from the University of Delhi in 2004 and received a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration for the Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning in 2013. He has over ten years of experience in managing accounts of educational and private institutions. Before joining Project 39A in 2016, Vijay was working with the Indian Institute of Planning & Management as a Senior Accountant.
Founding Members
Dr. Anup Surendranath
Nishant gokhale
Lubhyathi Rangarajan
shreya rastogi
Maitreyi Misra
Alumni
ADITYA RATH
ADRIJA GHOSH
AISHWARYA MOHANTY
AKHIL VASUDEVAN
ANAMIKA DUBEY
ANGELA ANN JOSEPH
ANMARY VARGHESE
ANSHU RAJ SINGH
BALJEET KAUR
BURJIS SHABIR
CATHLEEN KAUR
DEVIKA PRASAD
DEVINA MALAVIYA
DEVINA SIKDAR
DISHA WADEKAR
DONA JOHN
GALE ANDREW
HARINI RAGHUPATHY
HIMANSHU AGARWAL
HRISHIKA JAIN
ISHITA GUPTA
LUBHYATHI RANGARAJAN
MAYANK LABH
NEHA KANGRALKAR
NIDHI THAKUR
NIKITA JOSHI
NINNI SUSAN THOMAS
NISHANT GOKHALE
NURIYA ANSARI
PANKHURI AGGARWAL
PANKHURI BHATIA
PETER JOHN
POORNIMA RAJESHWAR
PRASHANSA DICKSON
PREETI PRATISHRUTI DASH
RAHIL CHATTERJEE
RAHUL RAMAN
RUCHI CHAUDHURY
S. UDAY BHANU
SAHANA MANJESH
SHIVANI MISRA
SHWETA WANKHEDE
SHWETHA GOPALAKRISHNAN
SIDDHARTH SHIVAKAUMAR
SOUMYA A K
STUTI RAI
TRISHA CHANDRAN
UJJAINI SRIMANI
VIBHOR JAIN
YASH S.VIJAY