All women bench in SC, 3rd time in history

Subject : Polity

Context:

The Supreme Court will have an all-woman bench on Thursday, to hear transfer pleas and bail matters.

More details about the women bench in Supreme Court:

The present bench comprises Justices Hima Kohli and Bela M Trivedi.
This will be the third time ever in the Supreme Court’s history that a bench of women judges will be hearing cases.
The first such instance was in 2013 when Justices Gyan Sudha Misra and Ranjana Prakash Desai sat together temporarily due to the absence of another judge.
The second such instance was in 2018, when Justices R Banumathi and Indira Banerjee adorned a bench.

History of Women representation in the Supreme Court.

Justice M Fatima Beeviwas the first woman to be appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court in 1989.
The apex court currently has only three women judges: Justices Kohli, B V Nagarathna, and Trivedi..
In the history of the SC, there have been only 11 women judges.
Justice B V Nagarthana will become Chief Justice of India in 2027 for 36 days.

Present status of Women’s share in Indian judiciary:

In high courts, the percentage of women judges is a mere 11.5%, while in the Supreme Court there are three sitting women judges out of 33 in office.
Out of a total of 37 women candidates recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium for appointment as high court judges, only 17 have been appointed so far, while the rest of the names are pending with the central government.
For the high courts, Collegium has recommended 192 candidates so far.
Out of these, 37, that is 19 per cent, were women.
There is an abysmally low number of 83 women judges out of 680 judges in the high courts and about 30 per cent women judicial officers in the subordinate courts.
Nearly 17 lakh lawyers practice in the country, only 15% are women.