Telangana High Court has only 27 percent women judges, 19 out of 26 are male judges
Hyderabad: Representation of gender is key in any field, as it helps in ensuring that all sides are understood. When it comes to the judicial system, this representation plays a crucial role, as it strives to deliver justice to scores of victims, of whom, at least half of them could be women. In such a scenario, the Telangana High Court does not even have at least 30 percent of women sitting judges working. As per the latest report, titled, “Women and Men in India” released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Monday, Telangana High Court has only 7 women judges out of the 26 sitting judges.
Pointing to the under representation of the women judges in the judicial system, the ministry said, “More representation of women in the judicial system will tend the women community to seek justice and enforce their rights through the courts. Achieving equality, in terms of representation at all levels of the judiciary should be the goal, not only because it is right for women, but because it is to ensure a more just rule of law.”
Coming to the Telangana High Court, as on March 2024, while there are 42 approved judges as its strength, as of now it has only 21 permanent judges and five other additional judges. Of these 26 judges in total, only 7 are women judges, which stands at 27 per cent.
What about the country?
Coming to the Apex Court, this gender disparity is further widened, as the Supreme Court has only three women judges out of the 34 sitting judges, which is a mere nine percent.
Meanwhile, on an average in all the Indian high courts, only 14% of the judges are women. In all the High Courts combined, there are a total of 784 sitting judges of which, 110 are female, amounting to 14 percent.
The report added that such a small representation of women in Judicial decision-making process of the country forces us to think about the need to bring about institutional, social and behavioral change by sensitizing India’s population on inclusion of women in every sector.
Further the report highlighted that “Women judges also live their lives as women, with all the social and cultural norms and obligations of the society. So, women judges are more likely to bring those lived experiences to their judicial actions, experiences that tend toward a more comprehensive and empathetic perspective- one that encompasses not only the legal basis for judicial action, but also awareness of consequences on the people affected.”
