8 of 25 high courts have only 1 woman judge. Data shows poor representation in higher judiciary

Moreover, data shared by Modi govt in Parliament this week shows only 17% of lawyers elevated as judges to various high courts across the country since 2018 were women.

Illustration: ThePrint Team

New Delhi: Eight high courts in India currently have only one woman judge, and Gujarat is the sole high court in the country with a woman chief justice, shows data from 25 high courts analysed by ThePrint. The data, uploaded on the Department of Justice, Union Law Ministry, website underlines a stark disparity in gender representation on the bench.

For instance, there are only five high courts where women are members of the respective Collegium: Gujarat, Bombay, Karnataka and Punjab and Haryana.

Moreover, of the 608 lawyers elevated as judges to various high courts since 2018, only 108 were women—a meagre 17 percent. Data indicating poor representation of women in higher judiciary was placed before Parliament Thursday.

Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal furnished the government’s data in response to Raya Sabha member Neeraj Dangi’s query on appropriate steps taken by the government to appoint more women and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) judges in high courts. Besides, Dangi also enquired about the number of vacant posts for judges in high courts and judge-to-population ratio in India.

Meghwal’s response cited the procedure outlined in various Articles of the Constitution to appoint judges, while pointing out that there is no provision for reservation for any caste or class of persons in the judiciary. Since there is no centrally maintained category-wise data, Meghwal informed the House that the information furnished by him was collated on the basis of the recommendations (made by the Supreme Court Collegium) and final appointment notifications issued by the government.

The alarming gender disparity in higher judiciary has been a much-debated topic. Yet, the situation remains unchanged.

At present there are 109 serving women judges out of a total working strength of 755. This means that only 14 percent of judges in the higher judiciary are women.

In 2023, the percentage of women judges in high courts was 13 percent, which was a marginal increase from 11 percent in 2011.

The inadequate representation of women in high courts has been ascribed to their low numbers in the profession and more importantly in their underrepresentation in the decision-making body, which is the Collegium.

In high courts the Collegium is led by their respective chief justice and comprises two senior most judges after him/her. This body is responsible for preparing a merit list of suitable lawyers who can be elevated to the bench and placing it before the Supreme Court Collegium and Centre. The final call on these appointments is taken by the Chief Justice of India (CJI)-led three-member Collegium of the top court. This authority takes a final call on high court appointments and the Centre notifies the names only after its approval.

Where various high courts stand

As part of its analysis, ThePrint also found that the Allahabad High Court, which has the maximum working strength of 79 judges, has only 3 women judges.

Madras and Bombay high courts each have 65 judges as of now. While Madras has 13, Bombay has only 11 women on the bench.

Of the 49 judges serving in Karnataka, only 8 are women. Its neighboring state, Kerala, fares equally poorly. The high court there has only 4 women, while the total working strength is 45.

In Delhi, where 39 judges are working, 9 are women, whereas in Calcutta there are 6 out of 43.

With 30 judges in office, Andhra Pradesh High Court has only 5 women. Telangana, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh, has the same working strength on the bench, but has a better percentage of women judges, which is 10.

There are eight high courts where the number of a woman judge is limited to one. They are Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Orissa, Patna and Sikkim. The judges that are currently working in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are 16 each, while in Himachal there are 12. Madhya Pradesh has 33, Patna 34 and Orissa 18. Manipur and Sikkim have just 4 and 3 judges on the bench.

All eight judges in Uttarakhand HC are men, while in Jammu and Kashmir there are 2 women out of a total of 15 judges. In Meghalaya and Tripura all four judges are men.

Many former Chief Justices of India (CJI) as well as judges have lamented at the miniscule representation of women in the higher judiciary. Former CJI N.V. Ramana, who made history by recommending the appointment of three women judges to the top court, had called for reservation for women in the judiciary.

The appointment of three women judges in 2021—Justices Hima Kohli, Bela M. Trivedi and B.V. Nagarathna—had for the first time given the Supreme Court its highest number of women judges in history. 

Now, the top court has only two women judges. This number will soon come down to one following the retirement of Justice Trivedi in May.

Former CJI Chandrachud, in whose tenure the number of women judges came down to two, voiced his inability to appoint more women judges to the Supreme Court due to less choices in the age group that is qualified to become a judge. 

Speaking at the farewell ceremony of Justice Kohli, Justice Chandrachud, who was then in office, said there was no level-playing field in the legal profession. Earlier, at another event, he had pointed out that the “seeds of our institutions today in terms of inclusion, diversity reflect the state of the profession, say two decades ago. Because the judges who come to the high court today, in 2023, the judges who come to the Supreme Court in 2023, reflect the state of the bar in the beginning of the millennium”.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)