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'Why don’t we have more women judges?’ Chief Justice shares views at HTLS 2022
HT Leadership Summit 2022: Chief Justice DY Chandrachud took charge earlier this week as the 50th Chief Justice of India.
Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Saturday spoke at length about women representation and role of women in the judiciary as he shared his views on the question: “Why don’t we have more women and people from the marginalised communities in the judiciary?” The Chief Justice was making the comments as he addressed the 20th edition of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2022.
“Feeding pool for the Supreme Court is the high courts or lawyers from the bar. Feeding pool for the high courts is the district judiciary or lawyers who practice before the high courts,” the Chief Justice elaborated. "The feeding pool which determines who enters judiciary is largely dependent on the structure of the legal profession, which is feudal, patriarchal and has not been accommodating of women,” he further added.
Sharing his experience of working with a female colleague - Justice Ranjana Desai - Chief Justice DY Chandrachud further shared: “There is a certain perspective they bring to the judiciary. There is something intrinsic about gender which adds to decision making ...irrespective of the outcome that you arrive at in an individual case, they bring to the case, a more deliberative, consultative and dialogic process to the art and science of judging."
He made the remarks as he was speaking about the need to take a "very hard look of how we conceive of merit and how we think of diversity". The infrastructural issues -faced by the courts - also affects women. "Infrastructural needs of the judiciary need to be answered. Some courts in our country have no toilet for women," the Chief Justice pointed out.
Criticism is welcome, he underscored, as he stressed: "All criticism of courts helps us evolve."
