Three women judges in Supreme Court for 1st time

of a Congress government led by Harish Rawat.

An earlier recommendation of the collegium to transfer Justice Joseph to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana high court on health grounds was kept pending by the government for a long time

Justice Joseph’s name was recommended for appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court by the collegium headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on January 10.

On April 30, the government had returned the recommendation for reconsideration on the grounds that he lacked seniority.

The executive had also pointed out that several high courts remained unrepresented in the top court and Justice Joseph’s elevation would be against the principle of regional representation. His parent high court is the Kerala high court. Newly- appointed Justice Banerjee will have a tenure of a little over four years in the apex court.

In its 68- year history, the apex court has had seven women judges with the first one being Justice Fatima Beevi, followed by Justices Sujatha Manohar, Ruma Pal, Gyan Sudha Misra, Ranjana Desai, R. Bhanumathi and Indu Malhotra. Mostly only onewoman judge had served the institution at a particular point of time.

It was in 2011 during the tenure of former CJI Balakrishnan that the strength of judges of the apex court was increased from 25 to 31 to provide for appointment of at least two women judges. As a result Justices Gyan Sudha Misra and Ranjana Desai served during the same point of time. Now after seven years, the apex court will have three women judges serving at the same point of time. Despite Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad requesting the apex court collegium to consider giving representation to communities which are not represented, the Supreme Court is yet to have a Scheduled Caste judge after CJI K. G. Balakrishnan retired in 2010.

So far, there have been only two Scheduled Caste judges in the top court. The first was Justice K. Ramaswami who joined in 1989 and served till 1994, followed by CJI Balakrishnan who joined the top court in 2000.