The Gender Gap On The Bench: A Structural And Empirical Study Of Judicial Appointments In India's Higher Judiciary

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Uttam Kumar Jha, Ph.D Research Scholar, Mansarovar Global University Bhopal (M.P.), India

Dr. Tai Chourasiya, (Dean) Faculty of Law, Mansarovar Global University Bhopal (M.P.), India

ABSTRACT

India's higher judiciary, consisting of the Supreme Court and High Courts, has traditionally represented profound structural imbalances of representation, especially with regard to gender diversity. Although India has seen large-scale social movements towards gender equality in political and corporate realms, the judiciary is still one of the least gender-diverse state power institutions. This article analyzes the gender divide in appointments to India's higher judiciary through combining institutional study of the collegium system with empirical evidence over the past three decades. Based on publicly available appointment statistics, secondary sources, and government records, the paper documents the continued underrepresentation of women, with only fewer than 15% of female judges making up the higher judiciary as of 2023. The paper examines the role that institutional form, opaque appointment processes, and structural bias play in perpetuating this gap, in addition to placing India's record in comparative context with other typical common law systems. The conclusions indicate that the collegium's informal mechanisms, combined with systemic impediments like professional hierarchies, limit women's access to the upper echelons of the judiciary. The research contributes to scholarly discourse on institutional gender equity and policy debates on judicial reforms. It culminates in recommendations towards improving transparency, employing diversity- sensitive criteria in appointments, and cultivating systemic pipelines that can facilitate more representative judicial representation.

Keywords: Judiciary, Gender Gap, Collegium System, Judicial Appointments, India, Representation, Higher Judiciary

THE GENDER GAP ON THE BENCH- A STRUCTURAL AND EMPIRICAL STUDY OF JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS IN .

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