ABSTRACT

Role of Judiciary in Empowering Women in India1

“You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women”
- Jawahar Lal Nehru
The laws enacted by the Government of India have direct and indirect bearing on the status of
women. Since the enactment of the laws women have been approaching the judiciary to safeguard
their rights and interests. They have been seeking justice against social discrimination, violence,
rape, dowry, sexual harassment at work places and immoral trafficking etc. Indian judiciary has
been very sensitive to women and women related issues. It has showen great interest in discharging
cases concerning women. The Apex Court of India took special interest in discharging its legal
and constitutional obligations and safeguarding the interests of women in changing situation.

In mean time constitutional law and ordinary law through judiciary has been working as a savior
of women from atrocities and also giving helping hand in numerous ways for perk up status of
women in all spears of their life. The status of women in our country has risen to the present level
which may not be up to the mark but still satisfactory is because of active judiciary as well as
public spirited people who successfully manoeuvred the status of women of our country to the
present level. The unbiased and independent judiciary has always played the role of a true Guardian
of justice. Since independence many a times the judiciary has pro-actively interpreted and
amplified the ambit of legislative provisions in favour of the unprivileged half of the society, i.e.,
the women of our country.

Indian judiciary is not sensitive to the needs of justice. It is one of the judiciaries in the world
which enjoys a high reputation of being justice-sensitive. Justice is an attribute of human conduct.
Law, as a social engineering, is to remedy existing imbalarxes, as a vehicle to establish egalitarian
social order in a Socialist, Secular Republic India. The Upanishad says that, "Let all be happy and

healthy, let all be blessed with happiness and let none be unhappy”.

1
Saurabh kumar,IInd year B.A.LLB
Chanakya National Law University,Patna.