With the recent retirement of Justice R Bhanumathi and Justice Indu Malhotra, one can explicitly hear robust voices from the Supreme Court’s (SC) corridor bolstering the appointment of more women judges to the Supreme Court of India.
The words of several socio-political leaders are “the 21st century is the century of women empowerment.” Fewer effects can be seen in the most developed, modern, and educated societies as well. In our developing nation India, there has been a significant improvement in women’s contribution in many work sectors. However, a vital question frames over here is, why the count, percentage of women’s contribution is still less in the majority of workplaces and have not fully covered all the possible working areas.
Before and post-independence, there have been many developments of laws made by the judiciary for providing equal rights and activity space for women. Yet, if we take a step to analyze the women’s contribution in the Judiciary itself shows us a wholly different narrative. In August 2021, India will complete its 75th year of independence, however, despite it all, the Supreme Court has only one female judge at present out of a total of 29 judges on the bench including the Chief Justice of India (CJI).
You will see below why do we necessarily require more women in the judiciary?
Strength of Judges in Supreme Court
According to Article 124 of the Indian Constitution, President shall appoint the Supreme Court Judge after consulting judges of the Supreme and High Court. The bill for the Supreme Court Amendment came in 2019 which is mainly for the number of judges. This bill amends the Supreme Court Act for judges count, 1956. This act states there should be a maximum number of 30 judges in the Supreme Court (excluding our Chief Justice of India).
Later, the bill raised this count from 30 to 33 and this bill was passed. Currently, there is a place for 34 judges in the Supreme Court of India including our Chief Justice. However, there are 29 operational judges against the sanctioned strength to be maintained.
- Justice Indira Banerjee is the only woman judge in the Indian Supreme Court. However, she will retire in the year 2022 after the latest retirement of Justice Indu Malhotra. The contribution of Justice Indu Malhotra has been very remarkable. She was on the bench addressing the issue and judgments like Section 377 of IPC decriminalization of Homosexuality and the Sabrimala Case.
- Till now, there were only 8 Women judges of the Supreme Court out of which, no one was the Chief Justice of India.
Present Count of Women in Bench
India’s lower judiciary has a poor 27.6% women forming the current strength of 15,806 judges. Additionally, the women judge’s count in the high court is low at around 10% of its complete current strength of 692 judges. At present, we have Justice Hima Kohli as the only Chief Justice of any High Court of India. She will also retire from the Telangana High Court this year as the retiring age is 65 years.
Why do we have fewer women in the Indian Judiciary?
There is a lack of willpower on the part of the collegium. Seniority convention plays a vital role in making the Indian Chief Justice. There are societal constraints and women lawyers are labeled straightly unprofessional. It’s astonishing to see that the ratio of male and female students sitting for CLAT in 2019 was equal.
However, due to social stereotypes, most of the women who were working in the field of law turned to the corporate side due to the male-dominated environment in litigation. This is the core reason for women lawyers choosing the corporate sector and joining private companies or corporate law firms instead. According to the 2011 census, the mean age of women’s marriage in India is 21.2 years.
Why is there a requirement for a woman to judge in the Judiciary?
We need a women’s perspective in Gender-sensitive cases. It was a shocker when the Former Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde asked the man to marry the girl who has accused him of rape. In such cases, we need a woman to judge as she will better resonate with the victim being a woman and make more strong judgments.
A gender-diverse bench is required for a bias-free judiciary. As per some studies, it’s overt that if we have even one woman in a 3-judge panel affects the complete panel’s decision-making in cases of gender discrimination.
Let’s take an example, if a woman judge had been a member of that 3-judge panel who gave a verdict on the misuse of the dowry prohibition law, she would have brought a better view to this case so that even such misuse of these overprotective laws wouldn’t have been generalized by the court.
How would this issue be resolved?
We need more appointments of the judges from the Bar itself. Several brilliant legal academics should be considered for Judgeship in the Supreme Court of India. These academics are offered the provision of appointments of “distinguished jurists” to the Apex court. Most importantly, we need more appointments of women in top positions of the same nature like Solicitor General or Attorney General. The collegium need to take timely steps to elevate more women judges to the Supreme Court of India.
Summing Up
All the above-stated facts represent a grim image of women in the judiciary. Merit-linked seniority is the sacred criteria for their promotion in the judiciary. Our history is filled with instances when meritorious judges were replaced. How frustrating and demoralizing this is, that only the replaced judge knows it all? Let it not happen twice.
So, “If we have a woman judge on the bench, more women would be encouraged to approach our judiciary system to report crimes and violence that is a matter of concern these days.”
This would be a satisfactory change, which may specify the commencement of a new era of judicial judgments.
