in 1971, she became a member of the committee on the status of women in india (cswi), where along with her colleague, vina mazumdar, who joined in 1973 as member-secretary, there went on to publish the seminal, "towards equality: the report of the committee on the status of women in india" (1974–75) in 1979, the supreme court of india reversed the judgment of bombay high court in the mathura rape case, in which two policemen were sentenced for raping of sixteen-year-old girl within a police station. the acquittal, went largely unnoticed until september 1979, when professors upendra baxi, raghunath kelkar and sarkar of delhi university and vasudha dhagamwar of pune, wrote an open letter to the supreme court, protesting the concept of consent in the judgment. "consent involves submission, but the converse is not necessarily true...from the facts of case, all that is established is submission, and not consent...is the taboo against pre-marital sex so strong as to provide a license to indian police to rape young girls." later in january 1980 she formed the first feminist group against rape, "forum against rape", widespread protests followed and eventually indian penal code was amended.