In a written reply to a question raised in the Lok Sabha, Law Minister of India Ravi Shankar Prasad provide information that, in India, there are 80 women judges out of a total strength of 1,113 across various high courts and the Supreme Court. Women judges in India make up for 7.9 percent of the total strength of judges in all the courts. In the high courts across the country, there are 78 judges are women while in the Supreme Court only two out of the total 34 judges are women.
“As on September 1, 2020, there are 2 women judges in the Supreme Court and 78 women judges in various High Courts,” he said.
With 11 woman judges, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has the highest no. of women judge. It is followed by Madras High Court which has nine women judges in a total of 75 judges. While Bombay and Delhi High Courts have eight women judges each, according to data he provided.
As per the data provided by Prasad, High Courts of Patna, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Telangana and Uttarakhand have no women judges at all. High Courts of Gauhati, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Sikkim have at least one woman judge.
Prasad said that “the details of female judges in these courts are not maintained by the Centre. The Tribunal is instead administered by different Ministries and Departments, while the maintenance of the records of the judges in Subordinate Judiciary falls under the domain of the High Court and the state government.” Prasad did not provide data on female judiciary in the tribunal and subordinate courts.
