Thirty-Six Days at the Top: Gendered Silences and Institutional Power in India’s Supreme Court

Anjali Rawat

Stipendiary Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, Exeter College, Oxford

If the convention of seniority is followed, Justice B. V. Nagarathna will become the first woman Chief Justice of India in September 2027, for a tenure of 36 days. In Gendered Silences? The Lack of Women Chief Justices in India, Dipika Jain examines the structural barriers that have historically excluded women from the country’s highest judicial office, while recognising the contributions of pioneering women judges. 

Jain’s analysis highlights the opacity and discretion of the collegium system; the consequences of seniority conventions and retirement rules; and the barriers women face in entering and advancing through the legal profession (pp. 518-19, 524, 527-30). Through the experiences of Justices Pal, Seth and Nagarathna, she demonstrates how women have shaped constitutional jurisprudence despite their exclusion from the Chief Justiceship (pp. 531-41). Her analysis also foregrounds intersecting inequalities of caste, class, religion and gender (pp. 520-21).

Read alongside Rosalind Dixon and Erin Delaney’s introduction to the Female Chief Justices in Comparative Perspective, Jain’s chapter shows us the distinction between descriptive representation and substantive feminist judicial leadership (Dixon and Delaney, pp. 1-2, 12-14). Its placement in the volume’s concluding section, Silence, Absences, and Anti-Heroinism? highlights the limits of focusing on women Chief Justices. The inquiry thus extends beyond whether a woman Chief Justice can dismantle the judiciary’s longstanding “old boys’ club” to the institutional conditions necessary for lasting gender equality.

Institutional design and the limits of descriptive representation

Jain’s account of Justice Ruma Pal’s appointment illustrates the impact of seemingly neutral institutional decisions on judicial leadership. Although Justices Sabharwal and Pal were sworn in to the Supreme Court on the same day in 2000, Sabharwal took the oath first, placing him ahead of Pal in seniority and potentially denying her the opportunity to become India’s first woman Chief Justice (p. 527).

The Chief Justice of India exercises key authority over case allocation and bench composition (pp. 527-29). Dixon and Delaney also identify India’s seniority convention and mandatory retirement age as constraints on women’s leadership (p. 27). Jain notes a gender gap in judicial tenures (pp. 541). Writing in 2021, De Souza and Srivastava-Kehrer report average Supreme Court tenures of 4.23 years for women against 5.5 for men. Justice Nagarathna’s anticipated tenure as Chief Justice raises questions about the scope for institutional change within a limited period of 36 days.

Jain’s critique of the collegium’s discretion (p. 520) can also be applied to more recent appointments. De Souza and Srivastava-Kehrer also report that women made up only 12.37 per cent of candidates considered for Supreme Court appointment between October 2017 and April 2019. Justice V. Mohana’s elevation in June 2026 made her only the second woman among eleven advocates appointed as Supreme Court judges directly from the Bar. Justices Mohana and K. V. Viswanathan were law-school classmates, yet Justice Viswanathan was elevated in 2023, three years before her. While their individual careers are not directly comparable, their appointments underscore the significance of timing in shaping judicial tenure and opportunities for leadership. 

The everyday workings of the higher judiciary

Jain’s observations about the everyday workings of courts bring to light the gendered silences embedded in judicial life. Justice Leila Seth recalled being expected to organise catering at a judicial gathering only because she was a woman. The convention of newly appointed judges sitting with the Chief Justice was reportedly abandoned because he was unwilling to sit or confer with her (p. 536).

A parallel emerges from a 2017 Hindustan Times report on the Supreme Court’s weekly lunches. A senior judge remarked, ‘Behind every successful meal is a judge’s wife’, as the report observed that Justice R. Banumathi, the Court’s sole woman judge, would have to supervise her own arrangements.

These accounts reveal the gendered expectations within ordinary practices of judicial collegiality. They also invite questions about informal institutional power. Who receives mentorship, whose views are sought, and who participates in professional relationships through which judicial influence develops? Dixon and Delaney emphasise the importance of collegial cooperation and relationships in shaping judicial leadership (pp. 8-9, 28). Jain’s attention to women judges’ lived institutional experiences provides a valuable starting point for examining these informal dimensions of judicial power.

Feminist judging 

Jain cautions against assuming that women judges necessarily produce feminist outcomes, discussing Justice Indu Malhotra’s Sabarimala dissent (p. 521). Dixon and Delaney similarly distinguish female judges from feminist judicial leaders (pp. 12-14). Of note is the 2025 case of Snidha Mehra v Union of India, concerning s 15(1)(b) of the Hindu Succession Act which prioritises a deceased Hindu woman’s husband’s heirs over her own parents where she dies without a will, surviving husband or children, including in relation to her self-acquired property.

During September 2025 hearings, a bench comprising Justices B. V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan reportedly emphasised balancing women’s inheritance rights with longstanding Hindu social structures. The Court in Snidha Mehra subsequently declined to determine the provision’s constitutionality and instead appealed to women to make wills to safeguard their property interests (para 18). 

This raises the question of how courts should reconcile the constitutional scrutiny of potentially unequal laws with respect for individual autonomy and traditions, particularly where feminists themselves offer competing answers. However, a feminist approach to judging ought to remain attentive to the underlying structures and inequalities that shape women’s choices. Women should not be expected to bear individual responsibility for navigating discriminatory legal frameworks and the law must address these inequalities. The above tensions confirm Dixon’s point that substantive feminist commitments are a more meaningful basis for assessing feminist judicial leadership, not a judge’s gender. 

Sexual harassment: the Judiciary’s “Dirty Secret”?

A more troubling dimension of gendered silences concerns sexual harassment within the judiciary. In September 2026, senior advocate Indira Jaising publicly alleged that women judges had approached her with complaints of sexual harassment by male colleagues, describing the judiciary’s hierarchical culture as an obstacle to speaking out. These serious allegations warrant careful and sensitive scrutiny. 

The Indian Supreme Court played a pioneering role in developing workplace sexual harassment protections through the landmark judgment in Vishaka, to which Justice Sujata Manohar made an important contribution (p. 522). However, if women judges themselves face difficulties reporting alleged misconduct within the judiciary, what message will this convey to Indian women who look to the judiciary for protection of their constitutional rights? Dixon and Delaney emphasise that feminist judicial leadership includes credible procedures for addressing complaints and ensuring accountability (pp. 18-20). The concerns surrounding the 2019 in-house inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi also raise questions about procedural independence and accountability, notwithstanding the presence of two women judges on the three-member committee.

Who is represented?

Jain’s intersectional analysis is one of the most important contributions showing the predominantly dominant-caste backgrounds of women appointed to the Supreme Court. She highlights the barriers women face in entering the judiciary, including continuous legal practice requirements that may disproportionately disadvantage those with caregiving responsibilities (p. 524). 

Recent developments in the wider legal profession offer both encouragement and caution. In December 2025, the Supreme Court directed 30% representation for women in State Bar Councils, with 20% of seats to be filled through elections and 10% through co-option. As Rao observes, this followed decades of limited representation. Rao also links increased designation of women senior advocates to the more objective selection processes introduced following Indira Jaising v Supreme Court of India (2017). Yet Rao cautions that these opportunities have disproportionately benefited women from privileged caste, class and professional backgrounds. Her observations reinforce Jain’s call for closer attention to intersecting disadvantages. Progress in gender representation must also broaden intersectional access to judicial power.

Conclusion

Jain’s chapter celebrates the contributions of women judges to India’s constitutional jurisprudence while highlighting the institutional barriers that have excluded them from the Chief Justiceship. As India approaches the prospect of its first woman Chief Justice, Jain’s analysis is a reminder that we should not stop at celebrating the descriptive representation it offers. We must continue examining the factors that inhibit access to real institutional power, the everyday workings of judicial authority, the mechanisms of accountability and the intersecting inequalities that influence judicial careers. The responsibility for addressing these challenges lies with the judiciary as a whole, not a burden to be borne by the judicial heroine.

Anjali Rawat is Stipendiary Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law at Exeter College, Oxford. I would like to thank the Blog Team for their helpful editorial comments, especially Dr. Natalia Morales Cerda and Dr. Pravar Petkar.

Suggested citation: Anjali Rawat, ‘Thirty-Six Days at the Top: Gendered Silences and Institutional Power in India's Supreme Court’ IACL-AIDC Blog (10 November 2026), https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/2026-posts/2026/11/10/thirty-six-days-at-the-top-gendered-silences-and-institutional-power-in-indias-supreme-court