Rise in number of women judges nation-wide trend: CJI Chandrachud

Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud on Friday referred to the significant increase in the number of women judicial officers and said it was a countrywide trend. At the outset of the proceedings, the CJI said, “We wish to share some happy news. Here in the back row (in the courtroom), we have 75 judges from the civil judge junior division from Maharashtra. Out of a batch of 75 judges, 42 are women and 33 men.” “This is a trend happening across the country. There are more women judges in numbers,” the CJI, who was sitting on a bench with Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said. Justice Chandrachud said he would meet the judicial officers, including the women judges, during the lunch hour. Some lawyers, including senior advocate Dushyant Dave, asked the CJI to take steps to raise the number of women judges in the apex court. “The appointments made today are a reflection of the bar 15 years ago,” the CJI said. Recently, former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president and senior lawyer Vikas Singh wrote a letter to the CJI, underscoring the need for allocating one-third of the judges’ positions to women in higher judiciary. He referred to the passage of a Bill in Parliament, reserving one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The high courts of Patna, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur do not have a single woman judge and there are 103 women judges in the 20 remaining high courts as against 670 male judges, Singh, a three-time president of the SCBA, wrote in his letter to the CJI.