There have been just seven women Supreme Court judges in the history of Independent India.
New Delhi: A rare treat awaits litigants and advocates in the Supreme Court next week as an all-women bench takes up matters for only the second time in the court’s history.
Justice R. Banumathi and Justice Indira Banerjee will form a two-judge bench on 5 and 6 September. The last time this happened was in 2013, when Justice Gyan Sudha Misra and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai temporarily sat together because another judge was absent.
The Supreme Court made history earlier this year when the appointment of two women judges within months took their total to three — a first for the court.
In April, Indu Malhotra became the first woman lawyer to be directly appointed a Supreme Court judge, while Justice Banerjee was sworn in just last month. Banumathi entered the court in 2014, the second sessions judge to be elevated to the Supreme Court.
Women in the higher judiciary
There have been just seven women Supreme Court judges in the history of Independent India. Justice Fateema Beevi was the first woman to be elevated to the Supreme Court, in 1989.
Currently, though at their highest representation ever, women still comprise 12 per cent of the top court’s total judges. Against a sanctioned strength of 31, the Supreme Court currently has 25 judges, only three of whom are women.
A similar situation exists in high courts. According to a December 2017 report by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI), only 11 per cent (74 women against 613 men) of all judges are women.
“The highest number of women judges is in the high courts of Bombay and Madras (11) followed by Delhi (10),” the report added. “Sikkim has the highest percentage share of female judges among its high court judges (33 per cent, one woman and two woman judges).”
Efforts to bring parity in gender representation in different sectors have not left the judiciary untouched.
A petition filed by senior advocate Mahalaxmi Pavani seeking equal representation of women in the judiciary is pending in the top court.
The numbers are equally dismal among lawyers. Of the 477 senior advocates in the Supreme Court and the high courts, barely 14 are women.