Why it is in news?

• A report by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy shows that the lower judiciary across India has a mere 27.6 per cent female judges

Reasons for Gender Imbalance

• The gender imbalance in the judiciary include the disproportionately low number of women lawyers and the challenges they face on entering litigatio
• “For instance, only 10% of advocates are estimated to be women and when it comes to Senior Advocates in the Supreme Court”.
• Sexual harassment and the lack of supportive infrastructure from toilets to maternity leave, also contribute to a high attrition rate amongst women lawyers, with many preferring to join the corporate sector instead.
• All these factors come together to result in disproportionately low women bar appointees to the benc
• For instance, in its 68 years of existence, the Supreme Court has only seen one woman elevated from the bar to the bench, as recently as January 2018
• The report cites how several prominent lawyers and judges have also described outright bias against women in appointment and promotion processes

Positive Zone

• Despite the abysmal representation of women in the lower and higher judiciary, recent developments have suggested an encouraging if slow trend.
• In 2017, for the first time, all four High Courts of Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were headed by women Chief Justices.
• Last month, Ms. Indu Malhotra became the first woman Senior Advocate in the Supreme Court to be recommended for elevation to the bench
• In 2016, the Parliamentary Standing Committee submitted its 87th Report recognized that the data on women representation in the higher judiciary was not encouraging and suggested that suitable measures be taken to ensure that the higher judiciary would be reflective of the composition of the society and its diversity.
• President Ram Nath Kovind acknowledged the gender imbalance in the judiciary in his National Law Day speech, prompting political leaders to call for reservations

Details

• In its report titled Tilting The Scale: Gender Imbalance In Lower Judiciary, it shows how of the total 15,959 judges in the lower judiciary across India, 11,397 are male judges which make up for 714 per cent while women judges are a mere 27.6 per cent at 4,409.
• Only in three of the smallest states—Goa, Meghalaya, and Sikkim, with a collective total of a mere 103 judges—does the percentage of women judges cross 6
• Goa has 65.9 per cent lady judges at 29 and 34.1% male judges numbering at 15. Meghalaya has 73.80 per cent judges with 31 lady judges and 11 male judges aggregating to 26.2 per cent. Sikkim’s 11 female judges in lower judiciary make up for 64.7 per ce
• On the other hand, states like Gujarat has 811 male and 148 female judges while in case of Maharashtra there are 1484 male judges and just 574 female judges
• Barring Telangana and Puducherry, the percentage of women judges remains below 40% for all other states.
• Bihar (11.52%), Jharkhand (13-98%), Gujarat (15.11%), Jammu & Kashmir (18.62%), and Uttar Pradesh (214%) have the lowest representation of women in the lower judiciary

Way forward

•  Need to regularly collect and publish statistics on the social composition of the judiciary. The regular collection of data on diversity is a prerequisite to diagnosing exclusion of social groups in the judiciary and designing appropriate interventions. The appropriate governmental authority, whether this be the Union Law Ministry or the concerned High Court, thus must monitor and make data on diversity in the lower judiciary publicly availabl
• Mainstream discourse tends to focus on judicial appointments either in the context of the tussle between the judiciary and executive, or vacancies and delay. There is an urgent need to expand this discourse so it can also accommodate concerns over diversity and equitable social composition

Source

The Hindu