Are there no women Chief Justices in any High Court in the country?
New Delhi: The Central Government has informed Parliament that there are no women Chief Justices in any of the High Courts in the country.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the financial statement of the Central Government for the financial year 2023-24 in the Lok Sabha on February 1. A debate was then held on the resolution of thanks to the President’s speech, to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded in both houses.
A public debate on the budget was also held in the first session. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman responded to those discussions. Subsequently, both the Houses of Parliament were adjourned on the 13th of last month. A gap of about a month has been left for Union Ministries and Departments to study the budget details.
In this case, the 2nd phase of the budget session is going on from Monday (March 13). The session ends on April 6.
During the first phase of the budget session, the Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK, Left Wing and other opposition parties continued to adjourn to discuss the Hindenburg company’s fraud allegation against the Adani Group and the investments made by LIC, SBI and others in the Adani Group.
In this case, BJP Member of Parliament Rakesh Sinha on Thursday raised a question about how many women judges are working in the High Court.
Union Law and Justice Minister Kiran Rijiju, in a written reply to this, said that 11 women judges have been appointed in the Supreme Court so far and only 30 percent of the sub-judges are women.
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“The representation of women in the judiciary has gradually increased over the last 70 years, but there is a long way to go to address the need to provide diversity in the High Courts,” Rijiju had said at an appreciation ceremony in the Supreme Court last year.
The number of judges in the Supreme Court increased to 32 after President Draupadi Murmu’s approval last month.
The number of judges admitted to the Supreme Court is 34. At present the Supreme Court is functioning with 27 judges including the Chief Justice.
According to the data, the Supreme Court has promoted 488 advocates till date, of whom only 19 are women.
As of now, there are 775 existing judges working across the country, out of which 106 are women.
Women judges constitute 9.5 per cent of the total strength of the High Courts.
Since the inception of the Supreme Court in 1950 till 2013, only 4 women have been appointed as judges. However, 15 women judges have been appointed in the last 9 years alone.
As of 2021, Madras High Court has the highest number of 13 women judges appointed. Subsequently, 8 judges have been appointed in the Bombay High Court. The High Courts of Manipur, Meghalaya, Patna, Tripura and Uttarakhand have no women judges.
So far only one woman judge has been appointed in the High Courts of Guwahati, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan and Sikkim.
Kirin Rijiju replied that as of now, none of the High Courts across the country have female Chief Justices.
Out of 15 lakh advocates from the country, nearly 2 lakh are women, which is about 15.31 per cent of the total registered advocates.
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