New Delhi: There were 16 female judges among 91 appointed to various high courts by the Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, who retired Sunday after a little over six months as the 52nd Chief Justice of India.
The details on the appointments made during Justice Gavai’s tenure were disclosed by the Collegium Saturday, a trend started by his predecessor Justice (retired) Sanjiv Khanna.
Among the total 91 judges appointed to HCs during Justice Gavai’s tenure, six were lineage judges, meaning they were related to sitting or retired High Court (HC) or Supreme Court (SC) judges. These legacy judges included Rohit Kapoor, Sanjiv Kumar, Garima Prashad, Vivek Saran, and Sushil Ghodeswar.
Among the 16 female judges, however, only one was a legacy judge—Justice Garima Prashad, who was appointed to the Allahabad HC in September. Her father, Sudhir Narain Agarwal, also served as a judge in the Allahabad HC.
Significantly, among these 16 names, only one comes from the Scheduled Caste category—Justice Ramesh Kumari. Her name was recommended for appointment to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in August.
Among the 91 appointments overall, 22 judges (about 24 percent) belong to the SC or OBC category. Thirteen are from minority communities such as Sikh, Jain, and Muslim.
Among the 16 female judges, five are from minority communities—Shamima Jahan (Gauhati HC), Rupinderjit Chahal and Mandeep Pannu (Punjab and Haryana HC), and Shail Jain and Madhu Jain (Delhi HC).
In comparison, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s nearly two-year tenure saw 27 such appointments.
The maximum number of female judges appointed at one high court this year was in August, when the Punjab and Haryana HC got five female justices—Mandeep Pannu, Shalini Singh Nagpal, Rupinderjit Chahal, Ramesh Kumari, and Aradhna Sawhney. All five of them are service judges.
It was followed by the Allahabad High Court, which witnessed the appointment of four female judges. Two of them—Vani Ranjan Agrawal and Babita Rani—are service judges, while the other two—Swarupama Chaturvedi and Garima Prashad—were elevated from the Bar.
Other female judges appointed during this tenure included Justice Sangeeta Sharma (Rajasthan High Court) in July this year, and Justice Geetha Kadaba Bharatharaja Setty (Karnataka HC) in September.
The Bombay High Court also saw the appointment of two female judges—Aarti Arun Sathe (in August), and Vaishali Nimbajirao Patil Jadhav (September).
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The bigger picture
ThePrint had reported in February that eight high courts in India—Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Orissa, Patna, and Sikkim—had only had one woman judge.
Among these, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have 16 judges each, while Himachal Pradesh has 12. Madhya Pradesh has 33, Patna 34, and Orissa 18. Manipur and Sikkim have just four and three judges on the bench.
In March this year, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal told Parliament in response to a question about the appointment of women in the judiciary that since 2014, six women judges had been appointed in the Supreme Court.
Meghwal also told Parliament that in the last 10 years or so, 162 women judges had been appointed to the country’s high courts. He said that the strength of women judges in HCs stood at 110 out of 751 judges across HCs against a sanctioned strength of 1,122.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also Read: Only 2 woman judges in SC and 82 of 1,079 judges in HCs — judiciary has a gender problem