As CJI constitutes an all-women bench, what's the status of women in law?

Shrinking numbers: A third of judges in subordinate courts are women, but only 13.2% in high courts & 12.5% in SC

In 2012-13, of the 175,332 students enrolled in LLB courses, a third were women. While the number of seats in LLB courses has since doubled, the proportion of women has barely changed. Data from the All India Survey on Higher Education shows that in 2019-20, of the nearly 400,000 LLB students, 33 per cent were women.

It is not surprising then that India has not had a woman as chief justice since Independence. Justice BV Nagarathna will assume that mantle in 2027, correcting this anomaly.

The proportion of women in the Supreme Court remains low at 12.5 per cent. Five of the 11 women who have served as Supreme Court justices were appointed in the last three years.

So, on December 1, when the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud constituted an all-women bench to hear transfer petitions involving matrimonial disputes and bail matters, it was only the third such occasion in the apex court’s history that an all-women bench had been constituted.

Women seem to do better in the lower judiciary, but a Business Standard analysis has found that their proportion falls higher up the ladder.

Data from a Lok Sabha reply on July 29, 2022 shows that of the 19,288 judges employed in the lower or subordinate courts, 6,765 – or 35 per cent – were women. Of these, 3,719 of 55 per cent were employed as civil judges in the junior division.

However, in the high courts, only 13.2 per cent women occupied the position of judge.

There are vast state-wise disparities in the appointment of judges in the lower judiciary and the high courts. Analysis shows that 17 of the 36 states and Union Territories had a smaller proportion of women in the lower judiciary than the national average.

Among the larger states, Gujarat had just 19.5 per cent women employed in subordinate courts as judges; Jharkhand had 23 per cent; and Bihar 24.2 per cent.

In contrast, 52.8 per cent of lower judiciary posts were occupied by women in Telangana; 46.2 per cent in Andhra Pradesh; and 45.8 per cent in Punjab. Fifteen states/UTs had over 40 per cent of women employed in the lower judiciary.

In the high courts, the number of women employed increased from 77 in 2019 to 96 in 2022, but their representation barely changed. Five, including Patna, did not have a single woman judge. Another seven of the 26 had less than 10 per cent women in the judiciary. Only three states — Sikkim, Telangana and Delhi — had over a fourth of women judges in the high court.

There was no correlation between the representation of women in lower courts and high courts.