All Women Bench of Supreme Court

On 1^st December, 2022, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud has constituted an all-women bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Bela M. Trivedi to hear transfer petitions involving matrimonial disputes and bail matters. It is only the third time in its history.

• The first time the Supreme Court had an all-woman bench was in 2013, when Justices Gyan Sudha Misra and Ranjana Prakash Desai sat together.
• The second occasion came in 2018, when Justices R Banumathi and Indira Banerjee shared a bench.

Current Status of Women's Share in Indian Judiciary: In high courts, the percentage of women judges is a mere 11.5%.

• In the Supreme Court, there are four sitting women judges out of 33 in office.
• Out of a total of 37 women candidates recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium for appointment as high court judges, only 17 have been appointed so far, while the rest of the names are pending with the central government.
• For the high courts, Collegium has recommended 192 candidates so far.
• Out of these 37, that is 19 per cent, were women.
• There are an abysmally low number of 83 women judges out of 680 judges in the high courts and about 30 per cent women judicial officers in the subordinate courts.
• Nearly 17 lakh lawyers practise in the country out of which only 15% are women.

Significance of Women Representation in Judiciary: Change Gender Stereotypes: Female judicial representation can change gender stereotypes.

• Broader Perspective: Gender sensitization will provide a diverse perspective to judgments.
• Implementation of Stringent Laws: The presence of women as judges and lawyers will substantially improve the justice delivery system especially for acid attack and rape victim survivors.
• More Empathy: Lack of empathy reflected in some of the judgments could significantly reduce.
• Benefit LGBTQ: It will benefit LGBTQ community as well, as women in general are more accepting towards different orientations of people.
• Gender of a judge does not matter when a citizen goes to court, but with a female judge hearing the person’s comments always makes the citizen (if female) less uncomfortable.