Representation of Women in Indian Judicial System

The Bar Council of India (BCI)

The Bar Council of India is a statutory body that regulates and represents the Indian bar. It was created by
Parliament under the Advocates Act, 1961. It prescribes standards of professional conduct and etiquette and
exercises disciplinary jurisdiction. It sets standards for legal education and grants recognition to Universities
whose degree will serve as a qualification for students to enroll themselves as advocates upon graduation.

Constitution of the BCI

1. The council has 18 members including the Attorney General of India and the Solicitor General of India.
2. The Attorney General and the Solicitor General are the Ex-officio members, while the other 16 members of
the council represent the 16 State Bar Councils in the country.
3. The council is headed by a Chairman and Vice-Chairman, who are selected from among the council members
for two-year tenure.
4. The council members are elected for period of five years.

Representation of Women in the Bar Council of India

After the passing of the Legal Practitioners’ (Women) Act of 1923 abolishing the bar on women from practicing
Law, Indian women were granted the right to take up the legal profession and practice as advocates in the
Courts of Law.

The first woman to practice law in India was Cornelia Sorabjee. She fought for the women to hold their heads
high and argue in the court of law as early as 1924. But, only a handful of women took up the step in coming to
the legal field.

No woman has ever been a Union Law Minister. Also, no woman has adorned the office of the Chair of the Bar
Council of India. 1
As of 2020, not even a single woman has been elected as a member to the Bar Council of India.2

A research, conducted by legally India a leading website that primarily focuses on the Indian Legal Industry,
showed that 08 out of 12 bar councils do not have a single female member, making an average female
representation of 2.8 percent amongst the Bar Councils for which the data was available.3

1. http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/about/about-the-bar-council-of-india/former-chairmen/
2. http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/about/about-the-bar-council-of-india/members/
3. https://www.legallyindia.com/the-bench-and-the-bar/thought-senior-counsel-had-an-old-boys-club-try-bar-councils-where-only-3-of-
members-are-women-and-most-have-none-20160712-7820
*As per the data collected in 2016.

Bar Council of Total Members Women Percentage of

women
Punjab & Haryana 27 0 0
Gujarat 27 0 0
Bihar 26 0 0
Tamil Nadu & 26 0 0
Puducherry
India (BCI) 19 0 0
Maharashtra & Goa 6 0 0
Rajasthan 4 0 0
Uttarakhand 3 0 0
Karnataka 25 1 4.0
Uttar Pradesh 30 2 6.7
Andhra Pradesh 27 2 7.4
Delhi 27 2 7.4
Total 247 7 2.8
DATA SOURCE: The
legally India 3

Therefore, these studies shows that there is not a single female member appointed or elected into the BCI and
the Bar Councils of Punjab & Haryana, Gujarat, Bihar, Tamil Nadu & Puducherry, Maharashtra & Goa, Rajasthan
and Uttarakhand. However, the Bar Councils of Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi had 02 female
members each making up around 7% of their roughly 30 members.
In India, the idea of a gender-balanced judiciary is far from becoming reality.
According to the data collected by SMASHBOARD, a New Delhi and Paris based non-profit that focuses on
fighting sexism, not only has no woman ever been Chief Justice of the Indian Supreme Court, the
representation of women across different courts and judicial bodies is also abysmally low. 4

FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN INDIA’S

JUDICIARY
Number of women who have served as the 0
Chief Justice of India
Number of women judges from India’s 0
northeast in the Supreme Court
The constitution bench that decided on the 0
divorce laws for Muslim women
Number of women in the Justice Verma 1
Committee that formulated India’s Rape laws
Out of 10 office bearers, the number of 0
females on India’s Bar Council
Number of women judges in Supreme Court 2
(out of 34)
Number of women on the three-judge bench 1
that set the sexual harassment at the
workplace guidelines
Number of Indian High Courts with only a 6
single female judge
Number of Indian Courts without a single 6
female judge
Number of judges who have served as 8
supreme court judges since 1947
Total number of female judges in State High 78
Courts (out of 1078)
Data Source: SMASHBOARD 4

4. https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/india/1910220/like-us-supreme-court-few-women-in-indias-courts-bar-council/amp/
Representation in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and other High Courts

The first female judge appointed in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India was Justice M. Fathima Beevi
from Kerala in 1987. She was later followed by Justice Sujata V. Manohar from Maharashtra in 1994
and in the year 2000, Justice Ruma Pal was appointed from West Bengal. After her retirement, Justice
Gyan Sudha Mishra was appointed. In 2011, Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai was appointed to Supreme
Court. Justices Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee, who will retire next year, came to Supreme Court
in 2014. After the retirement of Justice Indu Malhotra, the Supreme Court of India has only one-
woman judge, Justice Indira Banerjee among the 33 other judges of the Supreme Court.

“There are only 80 women judges out of the total sanctioned strength of 1,113 judges in the High
Courts and the Supreme Court across India. Out of these 80 women judges, there are only two in the
Supreme Court, and the other 78 are in various High Courts, comprising only 7.2 per cent of the total
number of judges”.
“Of the 26 courts whose data was accessed, including the Supreme Court, the Punjab and Haryana
High Court has the maximum strength of women judges (11 out of 85 judges) in the country, followed
by the Madras High Court (9 out of 75 judges). There are eight women judges in both Delhi and
Bombay High Courts. There are six High Courts, which consist of Manipur, Meghalaya, Patna, Tripura,
Telangana, and Uttarakhand, where no sitting judges include any woman judge. At the same time,
there is an only one-woman judge in six other High Courts of the country”, as stressed by Attorney
General K K Venugopal in his written submission to the Supreme Court of India which was hearing a
plea against a bail condition of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which asked a man, who is an accused
in a case of attempt to outrage the modesty of a woman, to visit the home of the alleged victim and
request her to tie a rakhi.

Therefore, in order to have a more gender-sensitized approach towards dealing with such matters it is
the need of our society to increase the participation of women in the Indian Judicial System. To be able
to empathize with the victims and survivors of heinous crime committed against women, it has
become the need of the hour to increase the recruitment of more female judges in the judiciary
system of India.
Representation of women in the legal fraternity in comparison with SAARC NATIONS

The representation of women in the Bar Council of India is far from reality. Having no woman as a member and the
chairman of BCI presents to us the dismal reality of gender inequality in the Indian Judicial System. While comparing the Bar
Council of India with other equivalent statutory body in SAARC Nations, it can be concluded that though women are under-
represented in these nations too but women have adorned the chair of chairman, unlike India, of their respective body
equivalent to the BCI.

Below is the data collected from the official websites of the SAARC Nations’ Bar Councils:

1. SRI LANKA
The legal profession in Sri Lanka was recognized by the charter of justice in 1802 and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL)
was established in 1974.
The BASL had its first Bar Council Meeting in 1974. And the founding president was – Dr. H W Jayawardena QC.
Right from 1974 to 2019, no women president has been elected as President to the BASL. 5

2. PAKISTAN
The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) is the highest elected body of lawyers in Pakistan established under an act of the parliament
namely, “The Legal Practitioners & Bar Councils Act, 1973”.
The Attorney-General for Pakistan is the Ex-Officio Chairman whereas it has 23 elected members from throughout the
country representing each province. From 1974 to 2018, there has not been any woman attorney-general by virtue of her
position acted as the Chairman of PBC. Although, among the notable former presidents of the Supreme Court Bar
Association of Pakistan, Asma Jahangir is the only women to act as a president of Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan
from 2010 to 2012.6

3. Nepal
Nepal Bar Council is an independent legal institution established by the Nepal Bar Council Act, 1993. As of 2020, there is
only 01 woman as a member in the Nepal Bar Council out of 09 council members. 7

4. Maldives
The Bar Council of Maldives was established in 2019 as required under S.3a of Law no: 5/2019, the Legal Professions Act.
Out of six members of the Bar Council of Maldives two are woman. Maumoon Hameed was elected as the president of the
Bar Council.8

5. Bhutan
Also, the Bar Council of Bhutan was established in 2017. The Bar Council constitutes seven members with an independent
representative. Her Royal Highness Princess Sonam Dechan Wangchuk is the president of the Bar Council of Bhutan and
former Supreme Court Justice Dasho Rinzin Gyeltshen is the Vice president. 9
3

6. Bangladesh
The Bangladesh Bar Council is a licensing and Regulatory body constituted under the Bangladesh legal Practitioners and Bar
Council Order, 1972. The Attorney-General for Bangladesh is the Chairman ex-officio. Right from 1972 till 2020, no woman
has ever been the Attorney-General of Bangladesh and the Chairman of Bar Council of Bangladesh.10

5. https://basl.lk/past-presidents/
6. http://pakistanbarcouncil.org/members/
7. https://nepalbarcouncil.org.np/demo/kalpana-kumari-bhandari/
8. https://maldivesindependent.com/politics/maldives-elects-first-ever-bar-council-146602
9. https://kuenselonline.com/lawyers-welcome-establishment-of-bar-council/
10. https://www.barcouncil.gov.bd/members-of-the-council/