Justice Gita Mittal is the chief justice of Jammu and Kashmir HC. (ANI file photo)

NEW DELHI: It was a historic moment in April 2017 when four women judges headed the most important high courts of Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras. But the Indian judiciary may have to wait for another decade to repeat the feat as women judges constitute barely 9% of the current working strength in high courts of the country.

The golden moment for women in judiciary, which got its first woman high court judge in Anna Chandy (Kerala) on February 9, 1959, lasted for less than two weeks in 2017 when Justices Manjula Chellur, G Rohini, Nishita Nirmala Mhatre and Indira Banerjee headed the high courts of Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras, respectively.

The spell was broken with retirement of Justice Rohini on April 13, 2017. Justice Mhatre retired on September 19 and Justice Chellur on December 4. Justice Banerjee had continued as Madras HC chief justice till recently before she was appointed as a judge to the Supreme Court.

With women as chief justices of the four high courts, two of them - Bombay and Delhi - also had women judges as the number 2 in Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice Gita Mittal respectively. Justice Tahilramani now heads the Madras HC and Justice Mittal is the CJ of Jammu and Kashmir HC.

In the 24 HCs with a sanctioned strength of 1,221 judges, there are only 891 in place (as of October 1) with 70 names being recommended in the last two months by the SC collegium for appointment as HC judges. Of the 891 judges, only 81 are women (9% of the working strength or 6.6% of sanctioned strength).

More than 20 women judges appointed in the last one year failed to break the two-digit mark in terms of percentage for women judges. Of these, there are as many as seven who would be the judges to watch out for after a decade as they would be senior enough to head the HCs or even get appointed as judges of SC, which in its 68 year-old history had just eight women judges, including three sitting judges - Justices R Bhanumathi, Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee. Incidentally, Justice Malhotra is the first woman lawyer to be directly appointed as SC judge.

The seven judges who could be eligible to head high courts in a decade's time are Justices Sangeeta Chandra of Allahabad HC, Bharati H Dangre of Bombay HC, Shampa Sarkar of Calcutta HC and Pratibha M Singh of Delhi HC (all with retirement scheduled for 2030). Justice Amrita Sinha of Calcutta HC (retirement scheduled for 2031) and Justice Anita Sumanth of Madras HC (retirement due in 2032) could also increase the number of women CJs at high courts after a decade. But, the youngest of them all is Justice Sindhu Sharma of Jammu & Kashmir high court (1972 born with retirement scheduled for 2034), who adds to the promise of a leap towards gender parity.

