The need to ensure social diversity in the judiciary and make it a more representative institution has been raised across multiple forums in recent years. Many former Chief Justices of India, including DY Chandrachud and BR Gavai, have acknowledged that the composition of the Indian judiciary does not adequately reflect the country’s socio-economic realities and have batted for enhancing diversity on the Bench.
While the higher judiciary remains at the centre of concerns around diversity, it is equally important to monitor how inclusive district courts are, since they are usually the first point of contact with the justice system for most citizens. For an institution vested with the exalted responsibility of dispensing justice, fairness must begin right at its base. Wider social representation is key to such fairness.
Discussions around making the higher judiciary more representative routinely revolve around the nature of the Collegium’s functioning. Analysing the diversity profile of the district judiciary, however, involves a different set of considerations, as appointments are governed by affirmative action policies framed by the states under Article 233.
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Different states, different representation
In January this year, the Ministry of Law and Justice, in its answer to a question in the Rajya Sabha, revealed that SC/ST/OBC judges made up 45.76 per cent of the total working strength of the district judiciary across all states and Union territories. As this number shows, and as surveys like the India Justice Report 2025 (IJR) have noted, reservations have, to some extent, managed to bridge the gap in representation of marginalised groups in the district judiciary.
However, the picture changes substantially from one state to another. The percentage of SC/ST/OBC judges ranges from 12.47 per cent in Jharkhand to 97.65 per cent in Tamil Nadu, according to the ministry’s response. This is largely because provisions laying down reservation in direct appointments to the district judiciary vary considerably from one state to another in terms of the nature of the benefits, the groups entitled to them and the size of the reservation pie. It is, therefore, necessary to examine these variations to identify the factors responsible for reduced representation in some states.
The Ministry’s response also provides only a picture of social diversity in the district judiciary as it exists presently. In the absence of periodic disclosures by either the judiciary or the Law Ministry, we do not have information on how many members of the SC/ST/OBC categories are appointed to the district judiciary in each recruitment cycle across different states. These numbers are indispensable for assessing the implementation of affirmative action policies.
A recent report published by the Justice, Access and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, titled “Affirmative Action and Representation in India’s District Judiciary: Law, Policy, and Practice”, attempts to fill some of these information gaps, drawing on responses collected by the team through Right to Information (RTI) applications.
What RTIs revealed
The first step toward ensuring the effective enforcement of affirmative action policies is certainty about the distribution of benefits and the groups entitled to them. Providing complete copies of the applicable law laying down reservation percentages and other relaxations on official government or court websites is necessary for this purpose.
However, the report finds that only 15 states have provided such copies, and that just 13 appear to mention the distribution of quotas in their Judicial Service Rules.
Many states simply mention that the reservation policy is governed by state or central government policy or orders. These orders are nearly impossible to locate on official websites in most cases, making it difficult to get a clear picture of who gets what benefits in appointments. Moreover, in many states, eligible groups have been excluded from availing benefits. For instance, in direct recruitment to District Judge posts, Delhi does not provide reservation for OBCs, while Assam does not provide reservation for any caste-based category at all.
The data gathered from the team’s RTI applications on appointments helps provide an idea of how these provisions have been implemented on the ground. As with the applicable law, however, there was a glaring paucity of information in the RTI responses. Responses disclosing the number of SC/ST/OBC candidates appointed to Civil Judge (Jr. Division) posts between 2018 and 2024 were received from only 16 states. For District Judge appointments, information was received from only 10 states for the same period. Quite a few queries either resulted in refusals to furnish the information or yielded appointment data that was not segregated by caste category.
The responses also revealed that a considerable number of states are not taking adequate steps to fill their reserved vacancies. For instance, in Himachal Pradesh, only 9 per cent, 2 per cent and 11 per cent of the candidates appointed during this period were from the SC, ST and OBC categories respectively. This is despite the fact that the working strength of SC, ST and OBC judges as a percentage of the reserved seats in the state was 56 per cent, 78 per cent and 40 per cent respectively, as of February 2025.
Similarly, in Odisha—another state with significant vacancies in reserved-category seats—9 per cent of appointments between 2018 and 2024 were SCs, 1 per cent were STs and 18 per cent were OBC/SEBCs. This trend held true for states such as Punjab and Haryana as well.
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Making affirmative action work
As evident from the above analysis, to faithfully apply affirmative action policies to all eligible groups, state governments and high courts need to adopt a series of measures addressing the lack of transparency, under-inclusion and unfilled reserved vacancies in the district judiciary today. Disclosing which social groups are entitled to the benefits and what percentage they are receiving is the first step toward enabling an evaluation of states’ affirmative action policies.
Arbitrary exclusion of certain groups from reservations deviates in spirit from the constitutional guarantee of equal opportunity, and should be eliminated. Finally, a proportionate share needs to be allocated to eligible categories in every appointment cycle to expeditiously fill reserved vacancies.
Ensuring social diversity in the judiciary is a constitutional imperative that strengthens the legitimacy and independence of the justice system. It is therefore incumbent upon states to ensure that the district judiciary does not remain inaccessible to the very communities whose meaningful representation is indispensable to achieving this objective.
Abhishek Rath is a Research Fellow with the Justice, Access and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Bengaluru. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Caste-based discrimination proves that Hindus are the worst terrorists against their own countrymen – the outer world knows this – thats why no one believes our word on anything. Obnoxious vishwpaakhand.