Breakfast with Aney: Women in the legal profession (Part 2)

In the second of a six-part series (read Part 1 here), the former Advocate General of Maharashtra sits down with Bar & Bench’s Associate Editor Anuj Agrawal, and speaks his mind. This time around it is about the status of women in the legal profession..[Continued].Anuj Agrawal: So how do you change?.Shreehari Aney: You cannot change certain things which are almost built into the society. You cannot teach people to be polite to women – that has to be part of your breeding. You either have it, or you do not. .But if I am in a courtroom where mentioning is going on, I will try to get in and mention first, because the later you mention, more the likelihood of the judge losing his patience. In such a situation, to allow a lady to address first… this is something you have to be taught. It’s like offering your seat to a woman, or opening the door for her. And if you have not been taught that, then it is a very difficult thing to do. .And assuming you have been taught to be polite: if you let her mention before you, you lose your chance, and may even be refused your prayer by a judge who has lost his patience by the time you mention. You learn that politeness just cost you. The next time you are not going to let her mention before you. These are some things that will never change. You just have to live with certain evils..At some point we will have computer records, so perhaps bulky briefs will go away. But what do you do if there are not enough toilets? .I think until the time Justice Dalveer Bhandari became our Chief Justice, if I am not wrong, we did not have a single toilet for women litigants. This was when between five and ten thousand people came to court, of which at least 30% were women. .They simply did not have a toilet. They had to walk down to Flora Fountain and use that public toilet around the corner! As for women lawyers, until recently, there were all of two toilets for them in the Bombay High Court. How bad can it get? And even today, I don’t think they have more than four toilets..It is just not imaginable how we can do this to a whole class of people and not even realise that it is being done. Such things can be changed, and do change. We are a lot better now, but we still don’t have near enough. .AA: What about the proposed new High Court campus?.SA: Well, obviously the facilities will be better. .But the Bombay Bar is not very happy about the shift..SA: Right. It is something to do with changing status quo. Remember the shifting of the City Civil Courts? Because the City Civil Court’s building wasn’t able to cope with the pressure, it was decided to shift north Bombay cases to a new campus that the Government set in Kalina, North Mumbai. .For years, the Bar refused to go there, never mind the problems faced by the litigants. Finally one day Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar said that as of tomorrow, the court is functioning from Kalina, whether you go there or not. The Bar went..The thing is we don’t want change. We don’t like change. I suspect the Bar will be most reluctant to go to this new High Court building when it gets ready..AA: Moving on, who are some of the lady lawyers of note? .SA: They are all over world..There is Nisha Kaur Uberoi, who is a very good lawyer. In Goa you have an excellent young lady called Ameera Razaq who knows entertainment law and mining law. In Hong Kong, there is Armin Kalyanram who went from Bombay – she is very good. Then there is Razia Sultan from Sydney. Pallavi Gopinath Aney in Singapore practically invented the Masala Bonds, Megha Boruskar in New York… the list goes on..And of course out of our seniors, Rajani Iyer is somebody I have always admired. You have Ms. Phiroza Anklesaria – very strong, very clear headed and scared of nobody. Gayatri Singh delivers a spirited argument, mostly in PILs. Abha Singh is an articulate fighter who champions the underdog. Mrunalini Deshmukh knows her family law..Amongst the younger lot, I would mention Dipti Kale who knows her Indirect Tax law & building law, Pooja Khandeparkar, and Shruti Vyas who along with an intern from NLS Banglore Isha Singh, assisted me ably in the Haji Ali Dargah case. .The Nagpur High Court Government Pleader (GP) Bharti Dangre is extremely competent. When I was AG, I recommended Poornima Kantharia for GP – that lady is not scared to fight back, and with respect, tell the court to listen to what she had to say. I would say most of them are eminently suited to become judges of the High Court..AA: You rarely see women judges in the High Courts..SA: It is really tragic. The other day I was talking to a retired Bombay High Court judge about possible elevations. And I mentioned the name of a lawyer who happened to be of a minority community. The judge said, “Yes, but we already have a judge of a minority community”.I said, “So what? You can have more than one.”.He said, “No it is not possible because we have this unwritten quota – if you have got one, then you don’t have to get another.”.This applies more so to women mind you. Somehow we have not gone beyond the stage of our token lady judge. It can’t be that the next lady judge can be appointed only when a sitting lady judge retires..Somehow we have not gone beyond the stage of our token lady judge. It can’t be that the next lady judge can be appointed only when a sitting lady judge retires..Women are nearly 50% of the population, you would expect at least half the judges to be women. But we are nowhere near that..AA: So how do women lawyers overcome these difficulties?.SA: Women who succeed work twice as hard to even be taken seriously, and do not give up on count of physical odds. After a point, if they hang on that long, these difficulties go away. But requires the desire and perseverance and gumption to do it. .The other issue is being typecast. We have typecast lady lawyers into certain roles that have no relevance whatsoever to their ability. .We see them as lawyers practicing family law. Or as lawyers for Government or public bodies- areas where we tend to believe that even if they mess up, no one will hold them accountable. .That is straightaway relegating them to a ‘safety zone’ of work with reduced responsibility..AA: Have you have been unfair to women?.SA: Yes. I think so. I have been guilty of condescension, of being boorish to the point of not taking women lawyers seriously enough. Occasionally, when I should have paid more attention I was perhaps flippant or offhand. That has happened. .It was a behaviour pattern that fortunately I spotted very early, and I did take some very serious remedial measures to realign my thinking, to accept them for what they are. I know I am going to sound extremely sexist when I say this, but it is difficult to go beyond a pretty face and see the serious lawyer that lies behind it. It took me a long time..We still look upon women, not as sex objects, but as something light, airy, pretty with pink ribbons and bows. And to think them virtually in the Kali or Durgamata form takes a great deal of mental exercise. We tend to be stuck in the superficial..We still look upon women, not as sex objects, but as something light, airy, pretty with pink ribbons and bows. And to think them virtually in the Kali or Durgamata form takes a great deal of mental exercise..I have seen women lawyers make really difficult arguments. To give you an example, I was arguing in this matter involving mangroves. Gayatri Singh was on the other side, and she gave me a really hard time. With her quality of arguments, I had to really stretch myself to get what I wanted. And even then, she got a great deal more than I expected her to get..AA: So where does the change start? .SA: I think somewhere our legal education is falling short. We have to teach women to get out there and be as competitive as the next man. I find that the best of them come to courts for a fortnight or a month and thereafter disappear into the great beyond..If you want to litigate, and if you want to survive in a profession where your performance and result has an immediate bearing on whether you are good or not, you have to be taught different skills..I am not using the best words here but you get the idea – you have to be more thick skinned, you have to be taught to be more upfront and in your face. In other words, you have to be taught to forget that you are a lady, and remember you are a lawyer who is fighting for the client. Throw all the punches you can, the wild ones and the good ones..There is a bad word for this kind of training in America – it is called the killer instinct. Teaching people law is one thing, but to teach them the business of lawyering is something else..There is a bad word for this kind of training in America – it is called the killer instinct. Teaching people law is one thing, but to teach them the business of lawyering is something else..AA: But is that the responsibility of university?.SA: I think so. Where society has created women as less equal than men, and the university is hoping to train them to enter a profession where they must fight in order to survive, the fighting skills have to be taught. .I am not going to stretch this point too much – there shouldn’t be courses on how to become a lady advocate of caliber. But a more realistic understanding of what the profession holds and what is expected of you – this is something that can be introduced. They are thrown into the deep end and told, “Now you swim if you have to survive.” .Even if you know how to swim, you flounder..AA: Are you hopeful?.SA: I am hopeful that the importance of litigation will diminish. The world as I see ahead of me, in India particularly, will be a world where there will not be that many things that go into formal court. Specialised courts will come up..So you have such specialised courts where women will go, because it is easier to function within a different realm. But to bring them again into mainstream court room, like I said, will always be difficult. .Why were no women seriously arguing the rights of women in the Haji Ali dargah case? I think Gayatri Singh did make an argument but not the main one..But then again I am guilty of typecasting. Why should women be arguing women’s cases? What I am trying to say is that important constitutional matters are really not given to a woman to argue. And they have all the ability to do it..AA: Would you?.SA: Oh yes. I would be more than happy to sit next to a lady counsel who is delivering a brilliant argument on a complicated question of law. The other day, Deepa Chauhan was briefing me in a matter that related to tariff fixations in electricity. It was a very complicated matter, and I had been going back and forth in court on three or four occasions. .And as luck would have it, I was unable to go into court for that matter. She argued it, and got the relief that I possibly would not have got. And this was directly related to her ability to deliver a sound argument. .It is going to take some time to get them to the front ranks, but they can certainly get there.