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  Gender Gap in Judiciary

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Introduction - 

1. The Supreme Court only has two women judges, as against the 34 seats reserved for women judges and there has never been a female Chief Justice of India (CJI). 
2. There are only 80 women (7.2% of the total number of judges) judges out of the total sanctioned strength of 1,113 judges in the SC and the HCs, out of which two in the SC. 
3. The Punjab and Haryana HCs has the maximum strength of women judges (11 out of 85 judges), followed by the Madras HC (9 out of 75 judges). 
4. Both Delhi and Bombay HCs have 8 women judges. The HCs of Manipur, Meghalaya, Patna, Tripura, Telangana, and Uttarakhand, do not have any women in the sitting judges.
5. In the senior designation of lawyers, there are only 17 women senior counsel designates in the SC as opposed to 403 men. The Delhi HC has 8 women and 229 men designates. 
6. Similarly, in the Bombay HC, there are 6 women and 157 men designates.

Foremost reasons to have women in Judiciary - 

1. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5 and SDG 16 in particular), address the global responsibility of having representation of women in public institutions such as the judiciary. 
2. Women judges strengthen the judiciary and help to gain the trust of public. Judiciaries being perceived as being more transparent, inclusive, and representative of the people whose lives they affect. 
3. Enhance the legitimacy of courts, sending a powerful signal that they are open and accessible to those who seek recourse to justice. 
4. Women judges bring those lived experiences to their judicial actions, experiences that tend toward a more comprehensive and empathetic perspective.

Suggestions to increase the participation of women in Judiciary -

1. Presently, no data is centrally maintained on the number of women in tribunals or lower courts, the SC must direct the collection of data and also to determine the year-wise number of senior designates by all HCs. 
2. Greater representation of women should be ensured at all levels including the SC, considering that the power of appointment rests almost exclusively with the SC Collegium. 
3. The goal must be to achieve at least 50% representation of women in all leadership positions.
4. There should be a mandatory training of all lawyers on gender sensitization, specially of the Judges, who might belong to the “old school” and are maybe “patriarchal” in outlook.
5. In a significant decision, the SC has ruled that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, declaring triple talaq mode of divorce among Muslims illegal, did not take away a person’s right to seek anticipatory bail from a competent court.
6. A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee gave this ruling in a case where a man was booked under Section 4 of the Act after his estranged wife accused him of giving triple talaq and marrying a second time.
7. She also accused the husband and his mother of harassing her for dowry and lodged a complaint under Section 498A of IPC.
8. The man said he and his first wife had been estranged for the last three years and all efforts for an amicable solution had not borne fruit.
9. He said six months earlier, she had complained to the Masjid Committee but had not complained of any matrimonial ill treatment.
10. It was only after he contracted a second marriage, which was permitted under Muslim personal law, that the first wife made the complaint under the triple talaq abolition law as well as Section 498A of IPC.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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