In 2012 the Bombay high court again missed out on designating any women in a group of eight, while in 2013 the Delhi high court designated two women, out of four total new seniors.
The Supreme Court elevated 75 per cent women in its last round of four elevations in 2013.
According to Legally India analysis conducted in 2011, in 20 years in Mumbai and Delhi, there were only six women designated out of 203 new senior counsel.
The advocates designated this year are:
- Ashutosh A Kumbhakoni
- Rahul V Narichania
- Dr K Shivaram
- Beni Madhav P Chatterji
- Anand Suryakant Jaiswal
- Jayaprakash Sen
- Gaurav R Joshi
- Anil Sharadchandra Mardikar
- AV Bukhari
- Anil Vishnu Anturkar
- Mukesh Manubhai Vashi
[Notification link: hat-tip to @superselector, for first tweeting the news yesterday]
Also read:
- How nuclear physicist Anup Bhambhani became a first-gen media law darling and Delhi senior counsel
- How to make your own luck at the Delhi bar: NLS’ Dayan Krishnan, latest ‘self-made’ senior counsel, in-depth
- First NLS senior counsel interview: Akshay Bhan on the importance of seniors and who’s next from NLS
Comments
Nobody yet. Very few NLS alumni are practicingas counsel/litigators in Mumbai (I am not counting the ones who are in the litigation teams of law firms/solicitor firms); and those who are also have quite specialised practices. As far as I am aware, hardly 7-8 are practicing: Gopal Shenoy (criminal law), Ashwin Shanker (maritime), Ameya Gokhale (civil/commercial), Bimal Rajasekhar (maritime), Mihir Naniwadekar (direct tax), Aaditya Shiralkar (civil/commercial), Archit Dhir (maritime). Maybe we can see Ashwin Shanker being designated in another 5-7 years; but otherwise, I think it will be at least another 10 yrs or so for an law-schoolite designation from Bombay HC.
Nobody yet. Very few NLS alumni are practicingas counsel/litigators in Mumbai (I am not counting the ones who are in the litigation teams of law firms/solicitor firms); and those who are also have quite specialised practices. As far as I am aware, hardly 7-8 are practicing: Gopal Shenoy (criminal law), Ashwin Shanker (maritime), Ameya Gokhale (civil/commercial), Bimal Rajasekhar (maritime), Mihir Naniwadekar (direct tax), Aaditya Shiralkar (civil/commercial), Archit Dhir (maritime). Maybe we can see Ashwin Shanker being designated in another 5-7 years; but otherwise, I think it will be at least another 10 yrs or so for an law-schoolite designation from Bombay HC.[/quote]
Still a GLC monopoly in this part of the world
@ Bad Taste
I completely agree. Looks like the headline is made by a bitter feminist rather a legal person.
Shouldn't we be asking the question why not a single woman made it to SC at the Bombay HC in 3 years? Why there wasn't a single woman this year who was a 'deserving' candidate, according to these figures? And why only 3% of SC in Bombay and Delhi over the last 20 years were women?
Unless you want to argue that women make worse lawyers than men, those figures are strong evidence either of outright sexual discrimination, a systemic problem in the courts or a deep inequality in the culture of the legal profession.
http://www.legallyindia.com/20100308558/Analysis/women-breaking-into-the-bar-as-tough-as-ever
http://www.legallyindia.com/20100126418/Analysis/women-and-female-careers-in-indian-law-firms
http://www.legallyindia.com/201207112949/Analysis/all-boys-clubs-and-short-skirt-stereotypes-hurt-womens-legal-careers-sowl-panel
If the statistics are so skewed, you don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to see that there is an endemic problem in the profession and at the bar - in fact you need to have your head in the sand to suppose there is NO problem with the figures, just because you don't want to see one.
And the press shouldn't necessarily be the ones to provide answers here, but the profession needs to introspect and find out what can be done.
Finally, the headline is not implying anything about the calibre of the seniors, only about the fact that nearly all senior counsel in Bombay are women.
I think grads from NLUs are doing good job in various HCs and SC but the hype created around NLU grads is too much. There are senior counsels and various advocates who are from 3 year law colleges and they are doing exceptionally well and being from an NLU does give you an edge because of internships and other curricular activities but in my opinion it is not the be all and end all. Its about focus and hard work which can take you to heights after all litigation is a big gamble and struggle for 3-4 years.
Merely, that there is not a single woman who was made a senior counsel.
That, in my opinion, is worth pointing out but doesn't have to detract from the quality of the men who have been appointed.
It's like saying, in the US, for instance: "Not a single partner in XYZ firm is African American." That doesn't mean that any of the Caucasians who are partners are not deserving, but it does point out a serious problem.
The point is not that all the women were unfairly rejected, the point is that 0 out of 11 new senior counsel are women.
That's either because:
1. Women are terrible at law.
or
2. Women somehow don't make it to the top of the profession, either because:
2a. They leave the profession before they get senior enough.
2b. There is a glass ceiling that prevents most women from becoming senior enough.
2c. There is overt bias and sexism in the courts, which creates such a glass ceiling.
I would assume the problem is more likely to be one of the options in 2, and if that's the case, why don't you stop denying that a problem exists and we can start reasonably discussing why?
Best wishes,
Kian