Malavika is an Indian advocate, constitutional scholar, and legal researcher based in Bengaluru. Her professional practice and academic inquiry focus heavily on public law, constitutional disputes, and the political economy of federalism in India. She holds a Bachelor of Laws from NALSAR University of Law, an LL.M. from the University of Michigan Law School as a Grotius Fellow, and completed her doctoral studies in 2024. Her doctoral research provides a critical socio-legal analysis of cooperative federalism, examining the tensions between central authority and state-level governance under the Indian constitutional framework.
She possesses extensive dispute resolution experience, having spent over a decade handling civil, commercial, and public law litigation across various Indian tribunals, High Courts, and the Supreme Court of India. Early in her career, she served as a judicial law clerk to Justice S. Ravindra Bhat at the High Court of Delhi. Alongside her litigation practice, she has engaged in interdisciplinary teaching, notably developing and instructing a course on Law and Science at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru. As an independent researcher and writer, she frequently contributes analysis on high-stakes constitutional claims, affirmative action, and citizenship laws to major national publications, including The Hindu, The Indian Express, and The Caravan.