The country’s top lawyers have sounded the alarm on a glaring imbalance: while High Courts across India collectively hold over 1,100 sanctioned judgeships, fewer than 10% are occupied by women.
In a strongly worded resolution passed on August 30, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) expressed “grave concern” over the skewed gender ratio in the higher judiciary and called upon the Chief Justice of India and the Collegium to act decisively in upcoming appointments.
The figures tell a stark story—around 670 High Court posts are currently held by men, while women occupy just 103. To make matters worse, states like Uttarakhand, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Manipur have no women judges at all.
What particularly rankled the SCBA was the recent round of Supreme Court appointments, where not a single woman was elevated. Since 2021, no woman has been appointed to the apex court, leaving the present bench with just one woman judge.
Letters from the SCBA president to the Chief Justice have already pressed for at least proportional representation of women on the bench. The association has made it clear that gender balance is not a matter of tokenism but a constitutional necessity—vital for fairness, for public trust in the judiciary, and for ensuring that the perspectives shaping Indian jurisprudence mirror the diversity of its people.
The resolution closed with a direct appeal: the Collegium must give urgent consideration to women candidates—both from the Bar and the Bench—in the next wave of judicial elevations to the High Courts and the Supreme Court.
