Aastha Thakur
Published on: 01 December 2022 at 20:51 IST
The Supreme Court had an all-woman bench today, led by Justices Hima Kohli and Bela M Trivedi. This could be the third instance when a bench comprised of female judges has been constituted.
Even though Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra and Justice Ranjana Prasad Desai sat together in 2013, it was an “accidental” arrangement brought about by Justice Aftab Alam’s absence as the presiding judge. In 2018, a bench composed of Justice R. Banumathi and Justice Indira Banerjee held sitting for the first time as a bench exclusively made up of female judges.
The Supreme Court at present has 27 judges, but only three of them are women: Justices Hima Kohli, B V Nagarathna, and Bela Trivedi, who took their oaths on August 31, 2021, on the same day.
The Supreme Court has never had more than four women serving as judges at one time than it did in 2021, when, in addition to the three judges already mentioned, Justice Indira Banerjee served there as well. This year’s Justice Banerjee resigned from her position in October.
Justices Hima Kohli and Bela Trivedi heard cases scripting history and symbolizing gender equality in the top court