The Supreme Court of India is currently functioning with 32 judges, only 2 of whom are women..There are currently 2 vacancies in the top court, which will come down to one if the recent Collegium recommendation to elevate Justice Joymalya Bagchi is cleared by the Central government.By the end of June this year, the number of vacancies will rise to 4, with the retirements of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Abhay S Oka and Bela Trivedi in the months of May and June.With these retirements, there will be only one woman judge in the Supreme Court - Justice BV Nagarathna - who is slated to become the first woman Chief Justice of India..The representation of women in the judiciary has historically been lacking. The numbers look better in the subordinate judiciary; Kerala leads the pack with 72 per cent of newly inducted district judges being women. However, the same has not been the case in constitutional courts. In fact, only 11 women have ever occupied the bench of the Supreme Court. The legal profession itself has for a long time been an old boys' club with women not only facing barriers to entry, but also roadblocks in their careers, something male lawyers rarely have to deal with. While representation on the bench alone is not nearly enough, it is a strong signal to other women in the legal profession and young girls aspiring to become lawyers that the higher judiciary is accessible to them. Women judges also bring their unique lived experiences and perceptions to the job, making the justice delivery system a more inclusive space. .Currently, there are a total of 763 judges in the 25 High Courts across the country, out of which 108 are women. This accounts for just over 14% of the total strength. Out of this, only one woman is the Chief Justice of a High Court. The data also shows that the representation of women on the bench of High Courts is not reflective of the demographics of the respective states. For instance, Kerala, which often boasts of its balanced sex ratio and high levels of enrolment and education of women, has only 3 women High Court judges at present. Interestingly, the High Courts of Punjab & Haryana and Madras have the maximum number of judges at 13.Three High Courts - those of Meghalaya, Tripura and Uttarakhand - do not have even a single woman judge..In light of all these factors, it is worth taking a look at which woman judges are most likely to move up to the Supreme Court after Justice Trivedi retires in June this year..The list below was compiled based on the judges' seniority list on the Department of Justice website as of March 1, 2025. Out of the 108 women judges, only the following 9 judges were appointed in or before 2016, putting them at the top of the list when it comes to seniority. .Justice Sunita Agarwal, who is presently serving as Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, is the senior-most woman judge in India. If elevated to the Supreme Court in the near future, she would have a considerably long tenure ending only in 2031. Her parent High Court is the Allahabad High Court from where there are three judges already serving in the Supreme Court. None of them are set to retire this year. Justice Agarwal is followed by Justice Revati Mohite Dere of the Bombay High Court, who if elevated, could serve until 2030. However, there are already three Supreme Court judges who hail from the Bombay High Court, which could weigh against Justice Dere for the time being. However, two among them, Justices BR Gavai and AS Oka will retire in 2025, which could once again open the doors for Justice Dere.Third on the list is Justice Lisa Gill from the Punjab and Haryana High Court, who, if elevated, could serve on the bench of the top court till 2031. However, there are three Supreme Court judges representing the Punjab and Haryana High Court presently and none among them will be retiring this year.Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai, has already broken the glass ceiling twice - by being the first woman to be appointed as a Judicial First Class Magistrate and the first woman judge of the Sikkim High Court. If elevated to the Supreme Court, she will likely be the first representative from the State to occupy the bench of the top court. Justice Anu Sivaraman, if elevated, would be the first woman judge from Kerala to be in the Supreme Court, after Justice Fatima Beevi, who was the first ever woman judge to be appointed to the Supreme Court in 1989. Moreover, currently the apex court has only one judge from the Kerala High Court, Justice Vinod Chandran, whose tenure will end in 2028. .At this point, it must be stressed that it is often unclear as to what the Collegium takes into account when it makes a recommendation. Whether it is seniority, parent High Court representation or any other factor, we are often in the dark.A good example of this is the Collegium's recent recommendation to elevate Justice Joymalya Bagchi of the Calcutta High Court to the Supreme Court. Justice Bagchi, it so happens, stands at only Sl. No. 11 in the combined all-India seniority of High Court judges, including Chief Justices.Four judges from the same High Court are more senior to Justice Bagchi. However, the Collegium mentioned in its resolution that it had to consider that there is inadequate representation from the Calcutta High Court, with only Justice Dipankar Datta occupying the bench of the apex court. The Collegium must have also considered the fact that the other judges, if elevated, would have had relatively shorter tenures at the Supreme Court. The resolution, however, does not make any mention of this..Shrouded in mystery as it is, the seniority list of women judges can only be taken as indicative of who stands the best chance of being elevated next. There are also chances of women lawyers being directly elevated from the Bar..More about the 5 senior-most women judges.Justice Sunita AgarwalDate of birth: April 30, 1966Date of appointment as judge: November 21, 2011Date of appointment as Chief Justice: July 23, 2023Date of retirement: April 29, 2028.After obtaining her Bachelor's degree in law from Awadh University, Justice Agarwal started her practice in Uttar Pradesh in 1990. She practiced mainly in the civil, writ, original and commercial jurisdictions at the Allahabad High Court for over 21 years. Justice Agarwal is also a certified mediator and was part of the very first batch of the Allahabad High Court trained in Mediation and Conciliation.Once she was elevated as a judge of the High Court in 2011, Justice Agarwal presided over benches in almost all jurisdictions and was also part of various administrative committees of the Allahabad High Court. After serving as a judge for 12 years, Justice Agarwal was appointed as Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court in 2023, becoming only the second ever woman to hold the post..As Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, Justice Agarwal has stated that she is taking steps to do away with the practice of giving of long dates in bail matters and judges issuing 'rule nisi'. However, Justice Agarwal's career as a High Court judge has not been without incident. The High Court Bar Associations of Allahabad and Gujarat have both raised grievances regarding Justice Agarwal's treatment of lawyers in her Court. Recently, the Gujarat High Court Advocates' Association resolved to seek Justice Agarwal's transfer to another High Court following sudden changes in judges' roster and open disagreements with senior lawyers..Justice Revati Mohite DereDate of birth: April 17, 1965Date of appointment as judge: June 21, 2013Date of retirement: April 16, 2027.An alumnus of Symbiosis Law College, Pune and the University of Cambridge, Justice Dere joined the chambers of her father, Senior Advocate Vijayrao A Mohite in Pune. She later joined the chambers of Barrister Raja S Bhosale in Mumbai and started practicing before the Bombay High Court. Justice Dere practiced in the criminal, civil and constitutional sides and also served as government counsel for both the State and Central governments at various points.She was appointed as an additional judge of the High Court in 2013 and made permanent in 2016..As judge of the Bombay High Court, Justice Dere has presided over benches that dealt with matters relating to the welfare of the LGBTQIA+ community, prisoners' welfare and making Section 498A cases compoundable. Most recently, a bench headed by Justice Dere took suo motu cognizance of the incident of sexual abuse of two kindergarten students at a school in Thane's Badlapur..Justice Lisa GillDate of birth: November 17, 1966Date of appointment as Judge: March 31, 2014Date of retirement: November 16, 2028.After securing her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in law from Punjab University, Justice Gill, daughter of retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice Harphul Singh Brar, enrolled as an advocate in 1990.During the course of her practice before the High Court spanning 14 years, Justice Gill dealt with criminal, civil, service, revenue and constitutional matters. She also represented the Union Territory of Chandigarh for a number of years. She was elevated as an additional judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in March 2014 and made permanent in December the same year. .In December 2024, in her capacity as Executive Chairperson of the State Legal Services Authority of the Union Territory of Chandigarh, Justice Gill oversaw the organisation of a National Lok Adalat which resolved around 3,000 cases in a single day. .Justice Meenakshi Madan RaiDate of birth: July 12, 1964Date of appointment as Judge: April 15, 2015Date of retirement: July 11, 2026.Born to a former Home Secretary of the Government of Sikkim, Justice Rai secured her Bachelor's in political science from Lady Shriram College and Bachelor's in law from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University. She started practicing before the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court in 1990 but by December the same year, she was appointed as a First Class Judicial Magistrate in SIkkim making her the first woman to be appointed to the post.In 2004, she was promoted as a District and Sessions judge and two years later she was appointed as the Registrar General of the Sikkim High Court. In 2015, she became the first woman to be elevated to the Sikkim High Court.Since then, she has served as Acting Chief Justice four times. .Justice Anu SivaramanDate of birth: May 25, 1966Date of appointment as Judge: April 10, 2015Date of retirement: May 24, 2028.After obtaining her law degree from the Government Law College, Ernakulam, Kerala, Justice Sivaraman enrolled as an advocate and started her practice before the Kerala High Court in 1991. At different points over the next 14 years, Justice Sivaraman served as Standing Counsel for the Corporation of Cochin, Senior Government Pleader, and Special Government Pleader (Co-operation). In 2015, she was sworn in as an additional judge of the Kerala High Court and made permanent in two years later. After she sought a transfer from Kerala, Justice Sivaraman was appointed as a judge of the Karnataka High Court in March 2024.As a judge in Kerala, Justice Sivaraman passed significant orders including one refusing to halt the transfer of a judge who authored a now infamous and widely criticised "provocative dress" order. In a significant judgment, Justice Sivaraman allowed the admission of transgender persons to the National Cadet Corps on the basis of their self-perceived gender identity. On Women's Day 2022, Justice Sivaraman headed the first all women full bench of the Kerala High Court.
