Six women lawyers designated Senior Advocates by Supreme Court, 14 women Senior Advocates till date

On March 27, the Supreme Court designated 37 lawyers as Senior Advocates.

Out of these 37, six are women lawyers:

1) Madhavi Divan,

2) Menaka Guruswamy,

3) Anitha Shenoy,

4) Aparajita Singh,

5) Aishwarya Bhati and

6) Priya Hingorani

The Supreme Court has made only 8 women lawyers as Senior Advocate before this.

The first lawyer to be made Senior Advocate by Supreme Court was Indu Malhotra who is now a Supreme Court judge. Malhotra was designated in 2007, a full 57 years after the Supreme Court came into existence.

After that, in 2013, Meenakshi Arora, Kiran Suri, and Vibha Datta Makhija were made Senior Advocates taking the tally to 4.

In 2015, two more women lawyers were designated, V Mohana and Mahalakshmi Pavani making it 6 women lawyers.

Meanwhile, two retired women High Court judges were also designated – Sharda Aggarwal in 2006 and Rekha Sharma in 2015.

Thus, the Supreme Court has designated twelve women lawyers as Senior Advocates till date. The number is fourteen if the automatic designation of the two retired High Court judges is also accounted for.

From its establishment till date, the Supreme Court has made 420 Senior Advocates. Out of the 420, many are retired High Court judges who are automatically conferred gown upon retirement.