NEW DELHI : Women have excelled across sectors, including the legal profession, and there are many eminent professionals who have made it big on the back of their merit, Solicitor General (SG) of India Tushar Mehta said on Saturday.
“Based solely on merit, solely on their competence, ladies have prospered professionally, financially, socially, culturally, and politically,” Mehta said at a programme, ‘Celebrating the women in the legal fraternity and their remarkable journey’, organised by the Society of Indian Law Firms Ladies Group.
He said historically a wrong notion has been spread that women are weaker and there were legislative obstructions in participation of women in the legal profession in the pre-independence era.
He said women should not accept reservation-based tokenism. “You don’t need tokenism, you deserve what you deserve. There is a discussion that some percentage be kept for the ladies in the judiciary, but that is not an honour being conferred upon them,” he said.
Speaking on the system of administration of justice, Lalit Bhasin, president of the Society of Indian Law Firms, said 35% of subordinate judges are women and 13% in high courts, and in the Supreme Court there are only three women judges.
“As per figures of 2022, 12% women are in the constabulary level and the number declines to 8% at the officer level. In prison administration, only 14% are women and they are all stuck in the lower ranks. In the high courts in seven decades, there have been only 16 women chief justices,” Bhasin said.
“In the National Human Rights Commission, which should be a shining example of fairness and gender justice, there has been no woman commissioner at all. This should be addressed,” Dr Bhasin added.