While there has been a marginal increase in the number of women in India's judicial system, the glass ceiling continues to be an obstacle in the way of achieving gender parity in the field, with women comprising only 29 per cent of the judges in the country.
According to the findings of the second edition of the India Justice Report brought out by the Tata Trusts, the overall representation of women has improved in 20 states at the level of subordinate court judges. Over a two-year period, on an average, the share of women judges in the high courts increased marginally from 11 per cent to 13 per cent, while in subordinate courts, it went up from 28 per cent to 30 per cent.
also read
- ‘To browbeat, bully others is Congress culture’: PM Modi after lawyers’ letter to CJI
- Husband giving time and money to his mother not domestic violence: Mumbai court
- Interim Budget: Rs 1,500 crore allocated for phase III of e-courts
- ‘Allow me to end my life’: Woman judge in UP writes to CJI over ‘sexual harassment’
Twelve high courts and 27 subordinate courts improved their share of women judges, according to the India Justice Report 2020. This means that while one in three judges in the subordinate courts is a woman, in the high courts, only one in nine judges is a woman. The figures demonstrate that the glass ceiling in the country's judicial system remains intact.
At 72 per cent, Goa has the largest share of women in their subordinate courts. This drops to 13 per cent in the high court. The biggest improvements in gender diversity in high courts took place in Jammu and Kashmir (15 percentage points), Chhattisgarh (14 percentage points) and Himachal Pradesh (11 percentage points). Previously, none of the three states had a women judge.
The largest fall of 6.3 percentage points was in Bihar, which, as of August 2020, has no woman high court judge. Since 2018, the high courts of Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura and Uttarakhand also continue to have no women judges. In all, five states do not have any women judges in their high courts.
As per the report, the aspirations of gender parity in the justice system remains elusive. At the high end, women's inclusion remains in dismal single digits and so, patriarchy and its violent impacts remain unchallenged.
