Women Lawyers Move Supreme Court for Fair Representation of Women in High Courts

By: WE Staff | Wednesday, 7 April 2021

An Association of women advocates moved the Supreme Court seeking fair representation of women among high court judges and cited their abysmally low presence in constitutional courts. 

As of July 2020, the Supreme Court has three women Justices: Justices Banumathi, Indu Malhotra, and Indira Banerjee. In the 70 years’ history of the Court, eight women have been appointed to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court was established in 1950, but the country took almost 40 years to have its first women judge, J. Fathima Beevi who was appointed in 1989. Since then, barring four years, the Court has seen at least one female Justice at the Bench. At present, Justice Indira Banerjee is the only women judge in the SC.

The present statistics show women constitute nearly 48 percent of the country's population, of which around 3 percent have made it to the high courts of different states, but India had no women Chief Justice of India to date.

Among 80 total women judges, only two are in Supreme Court and the remaining are in various high courts, comprising only 7.2 percent of the total number of judges. There are many High Courts in the country where there are no sitting women judges.

The association said, with the sanctioned strength of 1,080 HC judges, only 661 were in place, including 73 women, which constitutes 11 percent of HC judges. The Madras High Court has 13 women judges which is the highest among all the other HCs. The state of Manipur, Meghalaya, Bihar, Tripura, and Uttarakhand has no women judges in HCs.

The association said, women state judges numbered 6,056 of the total 17,778 judges (34%) in the United States and the ICJ had three women among its 15 judges. It even said attorney general KK Venugopal recommended the appointment of more women judges and said the ideal position would be to have women occupy 50 percent of the total judges' posts. He had said that improving the representation of women in the judiciary would go a long way towards a more balanced and empathetic approach in cases involving sexual violence. 

The need for adequate representation of women in constitutional courts as a measure towards gender justice and equal participation of women in the key task of justice dispensation. Gender-diverse benches play a key role especially in the field of gender sensitivity in cases arising in courts. It reflects the judiciary that takes into account different opinions and concerns before concluding. Having women judges from diverse backgrounds ensures structural changes in the decision-making process. 

The more socially diverse the judicial benches are, the stronger the judiciary is. This will improve public trust in the judiciary and increase access to justice.