Women made CJs in four major HCs

Chennai: The appointment of Indira Banerjee as the Chief Justice (CJ) of Madras High Court has created a new history as women now occupy the helm of all the oldest courts —Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai.

Justice Manjula Chellur heads the Bombay High Court, Justice G. Rohini and Justice Nishita Nirmal Mhatre are the CJ’s of the courts of Calcutta and Delhi.

A few advocates celebrate the phenomenon as ‘cherishing womanhood’ while some others remain unbothered of the new history. Madras high court has six women judges compared to 53 male judges but the count in lower ranks of judiciary is negligible.

Advocate and activist of Madras High Court, Sudha Ramalingam told Deccan Chronicle that women should make their presence in the lower ranks too.
“Owning a chair at the helm of affairs does not guarantee that women would be there in the lower ranks in the same departments. There is a need to many women to fill the posts of public prosecutor, government associates and pleaders,” she said.

The presence of women in judiciary would be effective as they are more sensitive towards issues pertaining to women, she added. It could be recalled that M. Fathima Beevi was the first female judge to be appointed to the Supreme Court of India in 1989 and the first Muslim woman to be appointed to any higher judiciary.

Twenty-eight years after the history is made, the higher judiciary has mere 10.86 percent women judges, according to Live Law. Of the 652 judges in 24 High Courts, only 69 are women, according to the statistics. And we have only Justice R. Bhanumathi of Tamil Nadu as the lone woman among the 28 judges in the Supreme Court of India.

“Now, we have four women heading the major courts of the country, which is a welcome thing. A woman as a judge gives a different perspective to the issue, not confining to just law, but to a human situation,” said N. Lalitha, advocate, Madras High Court.