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Greater participation of women in judiciary key to credibility: CJI
CJI Surya Kant emphasized the need for greater female representation in the judiciary to boost the confidence of 650 million women in India.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Sunday said greater representation of women in the judiciary concerns the confidence of nearly 650 million Indian mothers, sisters, and daughters who must believe that the justice system understands their realities and will respond to them with fairness.
Addressing the First National Conference of Indian Women in Law on the topic “Half the Nation - Half the Bench,” the CJI said, “When half of India’s population looks to the institution entrusted with safeguarding constitutional rights and finds, only limited reflection of its own experience, the concern transcends statistics, rather, it goes to the heart of institutional adequacy.”
Pertinently, he said, “It concerns the confidence of approximately 650 million Indian mothers, sisters, and daughters who must believe that the justice system understands their realities and will respond to them with fairness.”
He recalled the words of late Justice Fathima Beevi, the first woman judge of the Supreme Court, who said, “I have opened the door,” upon her appointment in October 1989. “More than three decades later, the responsibility before all of us is to ensure that the door she opened does not depend on individual exceptionalism. It must remain open not by circumstance, but by structure — sustained by institutional will rather than personal breakthroughs,” said CJI.
Underlining the need for more representation of women on the bench, he said, “Women often bring distinct insights shaped by how law operates in homes, workplaces, and everyday realities. Consequently, their presence does not merely add diversity to the Bench; it deepens the Court’s engagement with the society it serves.”
He identified the High Court collegiums as one possible area for introducing reforms by urging them to widen the ambit of selection to eligible women lawyers from that state practising in the Supreme Court.
“The moment for measured action is not in the future — it is now. Consideration of suitable, meritorious women members of the Bar should not be an exception but a norm,” he said. Where suitable women candidates within a particular age bracket are not available, CJI added, “I earnestly request the High Court collegiums to widen the zone of their consideration and include women advocates practising in the Supreme Court who belong to that state, for elevation.”
The event organised by the organisation Indian Women in Law (IWiL) spearheaded by two senior advocates - Mahalakshmi Pavani and Shobha Gupta - brought together women judges across high courts to participate in panel discussion along with sitting Supreme Court and former top court judges on issues ranging from bridging the gender gap on the bench, having inclusive benches, and the way forward for concrete reforms.
As the event coincided with the International Women’s Day, the CJI said that a reform in this direction is not a one-day event but a continuous process and its success should not be measured by individual tenures of CJIs.
Recently, the Supreme Court Collegium recommended justice Lisa Gill of the Punjab and Haryana HC as chief justice of Andhra Pradesh HC. The Centre has approved her appointment that will make her the third woman CJ of a HC. While P&H high court boasts of 18 women judges, with about a dozen women judges in Bombay and Madras high court, CJI said, “We must acknowledge that institutional intent is no longer enough – it must always be accompanied by institutional imagination.”
According to him, “Elevation is not a simple or instantaneous process. It requires nurturing the pipeline at its very source. If the pipeline is narrow at its source, the bench cannot later be broad.” Of late, CJI said that the foundation is steadily strengthening as women comprise approximately 36.3% of the working strength of judicial officers at the district level.
The court, on the judicial side, heralded a change across all bar councils by directing at least 30% of the seats be reserved for women advocates with a similar direction applicable to elections of bar associations.
Justifying such changes, CJI said that the legal profession has a working climate that imposes “invisible costs disproportionately on women” ranging from late-night briefings, inadequate facilities to unreported workplace bias and repeated questioning of authority.
“Every woman who takes her place on the bench sends a clear message to those, still facing these obstacles: your perseverance is not unseen, and it is not in vain. When a young female lawyer sees another woman presiding in Court — not as an anomaly or outlier, but as a matter of course — something in her psyche shifts. Aspiration becomes tangible. And belonging becomes unambiguous,” CJI said.
He urged the male members of the Bar to acknowledge and accept a simple reality that women members are not seeking concessions but a fair and appropriate representation, which has long been due. “Only when the profession itself internalises this truth, will the pathway to the bench become clearer,: he said.
“The story should not be that one individual secured greater representation; it should be that the Supreme Court of India, and the High Courts across the country, consciously embedded fairness into their processes. When that happens, representation will no longer depend on personalities or moments of resolve — it will stand anchored in the structure of the institution itself. And that is how enduring change is made,” he said.
