4 min readNew DelhiMar 9, 2026 01:38 AM IST
Greater representation of women in the judiciary is not about preference but about ensuring equal opportunity and a fair starting line in the legal profession, Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant, said on Sunday.
Speaking at the national conference “Bridging the Bench Gap: Women and Judicial Leadership”, Justice Kant said, “When half of India’s population looks to institutions entrusted with safeguarding constitutional rights and finds only limited reflection of its own experience, the concern transcends statistics.”
Justice system must inspire confidence among “approximately 650 million Indian mothers, sisters and daughters”, he added.
The conference was organised by Indian Women in Law (iWiL) at the Supreme Court’s Additional Building Complex auditorium in New Delhi.
Justice Kant said the Constitution, the oath and the office remain the same for every judge. “What changes are the new experiences that inform judicial perspective. Women often bring distinct insights shaped by how law operates in homes, workplaces and everyday realities,” he said.
Justice Kant also called on High Court collegiums to take concrete steps to improve representation. “Institutional intent is no longer enough. It must always be accompanied by institutional imagination,” he said. Where suitable candidates within a particular age bracket are not readily available, collegiums should widen the zone of consideration to include women advocates practising in the Supreme Court who belong to the particular state, the CJI said.
He also pointed to institutional measures aimed at strengthening the “pipeline” of women in the profession, including directions mandating that at least 30% seats in State Bar Councils be reserved for women. “If the pipeline is narrow at its source, the Bench cannot later be broad,” he said.
Story continues below this ad
During the panel discussion, Justice B V Nagarathna said the central challenge is not the entry of women into the profession but their retention in litigation long enough to reach the stage of elevation.
“When women are not able to continue in the profession for a decade or two or three, automatically, the source from the bar to the bench reduces,” she added.
Justice Nagarathna attributed this attrition to structural barriers both within the profession and outside it. “These barriers are not only from male members in the profession. Sometimes, they could come from the bench…,” she added.
Like many other speakers, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan noted that when the selection process is objective, women enter the profession in significant numbers. The composition of the judiciary influences how justice is perceived, he added.
Story continues below this ad
Former Supreme Court judge Justice Hima Kohli noted that since 2021, no woman judge has been elevated to the SC. “I am glad that there were some right people in the collegium when we three (including Justices Nagarathna and Bela M Trivedi) were made Supreme Court judges. What happened after that? Almost 34 appointments were made. Not a single woman. What is the message we are sending on the credibility of women?” she said.
Justice P S Narasimha said the issue lies less in the availability of talent and more in how institutions identify and recognise it.
The conference was attended by top court judges Justices N Kotiswar Singh and Dipankar Dutta, along with various women judges from high courts, including Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai, Acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Sikkim, and Justice Revati Mohite Dere, Chief Justice of the High Court of Meghalaya.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
