The Missing Half of the Bench: Women in India's Judiciary

The Indian judiciary speaks in the name of the people, but its highest benches have rarely looked like them. Since 1950 only 11 women have been appointed judges of the Supreme Court, and no Dalit or tribal woman has ever sat on it. The story of women in the judiciary is therefore two stories at once: remarkable progress at the entry level, and a glass ceiling that thickens with every rung climbed.

The numbers: where women stand

At the apex, the figures are stark. Eleven women judges in over seven decades, against a sanctioned strength that has grown to 34. In the High Courts, women constitute about 13.4 percent of judges (2023), and several High Courts, among them Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Patna and Uttarakhand, have had no women judges at all.

The subordinate judiciary tells the happier half of the story. Women's representation there rose from 27.6 percent in 2018 to 36.3 percent in 2023, and in Rajasthan's 2024 judicial services recruitment, 68 percent of the selected judges were women. The pipeline is filling; the summit remains closed.

Why the higher judiciary stays male

• The social factor: long and inflexible working hours combined with familial responsibilities push many women out of practice, so they fail to meet the requirement of continuous practice.
• The seniority principle: strictly followed in higher-judiciary appointments, it rewards unbroken decades at the Bar, precisely what interrupted careers cannot show.
• Missing infrastructure: a survey of 6,000 trial courtrooms found about 22 percent without washroom facilities for women, alongside absent childcare.
• No reservation at the top: many states reserve seats for women in the lower judiciary, but no such policy exists for High Courts or the Supreme Court.
• Eligibility barriers: district-judge entry typically demands seven years of continuous legal practice within the 35 to 45 age band, a filter that screens out more women than men.
• A thin litigation pool: the number of women advocates remains low, shrinking the pool from which women judges can be elevated.
• Stereotyping: an International Commission of Jurists study traces lower representation to persistent gender stereotyping in the profession.

Why it matters: the case for more women judges

The UPSC asked in 2021 whether greater representation of women in the higher judiciary is desirable for diversity, equity and inclusiveness, and the case writes itself across five dimensions. Gender diversity brings different perspectives to legal interpretation, as in Justice Indu Malhotra's dissent in the Sabarimala case of 2018 on religious freedom and gender equality. Gender equity promises fairer adjudication in family law, harassment and gender-rights disputes, visible in Justice Hima Kohli's rulings on domestic violence and women's inheritance. Inclusiveness corrects the male-dominated perception of the institution itself, a legacy carried by pioneers like Justice Leila Seth, who shaped legal reforms giving daughters equal property rights. Women in leadership challenge institutional biases from inside, and they inspire the next generation of women lawyers. Justice B.V. Nagarathna stands in line to become India's first woman Chief Justice.

The hurdles that remain

Beyond the structural reasons sits the glass ceiling: institutional barriers that quietly cap women's rise to senior roles. The collegium system carries no gender-sensitive criteria, so opacity reproduces the existing profile of the bench. Traditional family expectations continue to cut women's judicial careers short, a constraint Justice R. Banumathi has spoken about from experience. And with few women in senior-advocate ranks and bar-council leadership, the feeder pool stays narrow, though steps like the Supreme Court Bar Association's 33 percent reservation for women in its executive committee show the profession beginning to correct itself.

There is also a subtler reform: gender sensitisation of judges whose outlook was formed in an older, patriarchal mould, so that orders in sensitive cases stop objectifying the very women they concern.

The way forward

• Build the pipeline deliberately: collate data on prospective women candidates in the lower judiciary and revisit appointment criteria so that women from marginalised sections are not filtered out.
• Sensitise the institution: gender-sensitisation for judges and a professional culture that judges lawyers and judges on merit, not gender.
• Retain women in the profession: rationalise the salary and allowances of the lower judiciary and give women lawyers security of income against the uncertainties of early practice.
• Consider horizontal reservation: extend to the higher judiciary the horizontal reservation for women that several states already apply in the subordinate judiciary, without diluting merit.

Key Terms

• Glass ceiling: The institutional barriers that limit women's promotion to senior judicial roles despite formal equality of opportunity.
• Collegium system: The judges-appointing-judges mechanism for the higher judiciary, criticised here for lacking gender-sensitive criteria.
• Horizontal reservation: Reservation applied across categories (rather than vertically by caste), proposed for women in the higher judiciary as already practised in several states' lower judiciary.
• Justice B.V. Nagarathna: The Supreme Court judge in line to become India's first woman Chief Justice.
• Justice Leila Seth: A pioneer woman judge whose work shaped reforms giving daughters equal property rights.
• Sabarimala dissent (2018): Justice Indu Malhotra's dissent defending religious freedom and gender equality, cited as the value diverse benches add.

Practice questions

1. Consider the following statements: 1. Justice B.V. Nagarathna is in line to become the first woman Chief Justice of India. 2. Women constitute about one-third of the judges of High Courts. 3. Several High Courts have had no women judges at all. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 and 3 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 2 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
2. Consider the following statements: 1. The collegium system prescribes explicit gender-sensitive criteria for appointments. 2. Many states provide reservation for women in the lower judiciary. 3. The Supreme Court Bar Association's executive committee has reservation for women. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
3. Who among the following authored the notable dissent in the Sabarimala case (2018) on religious freedom and gender equality? (a) Justice Hima Kohli (b) Justice Indu Malhotra (c) Justice Leila Seth (d) Justice R. Banumathi
4. Consider the following statements: 1. Women's representation in the subordinate judiciary rose between 2018 and 2023. 2. No Dalit or tribal woman has ever been appointed a Supreme Court judge. 3. The Constitution mandates horizontal reservation for women in the higher judiciary. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3