ACJ Gita Mittal swears in her Lady Irwin junior Rekha Palli, Delhi HC now has 10 woman judges

The appointment of two more women to the higher judiciary represents more cracks in the glass ceiling of the men’s club that is the Bench. The swearing in of Rekha Palli and Pratibha Singh today has taken the number of woman judges in the Delhi High Court to 10..Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal today swore in her junior from school, Palli. The two judges went to Lady Irwin School in the capital together. It is also interesting to note that three judges from the High Court are from Lady Shriram College, including Mittal ACJ and Justices Indermeet Kaur and Pratibha Rani..With the four new appointments – the other two being Navin Chawla and Hari Shankar – the High Court now has 38 judges, as against a sanctioned strength of 60..As per the latest roster effective from today, the four new appointees will sit with the senior-most judges of the Court. Justice Palli will sit with GS Sistani J; Justice Pratibha Singh will share the Bench with Sanjiv Khanna J; Justice Navin Chawla will sit with S Ravindra Bhat J, and Justice Hari Shankar will sit with ACJ Gita Mittal..There are now 70 women judges in the 24 high court across the country. The Bombay High Court still leads the way with 11 woman judges, with the Delhi High Court in second place. The High Courts of Allahabad and Punjab & Haryana have 7 woman judges each, while the Madras High Court has 6. The Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala and Calcutta High Court have 4 woman judges each. As many as 8 high courts do not have a single woman judge.