Chief Justice of India, Justice Uday Umesh Lalit expressed hope that judicial posts will be adorned by a large number of women very soon.
Lalit was addressing a function of the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Dr Ambedkar Government Law College in Puducherry on Saturday.
The CJI Lalit said, “Five states, including Orissa, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, already have more women at the induction level in the judiciary.”
Giving an example, he said 129 out of 180 judges in Rajasthan at induction-level are women, and in Odisha and Jharkhand the number is huge.
During his address, he also referred to the appeal of Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Sundarraj in which he had said that women should come forward in large numbers to study law and also demand more women judges.
“I consider the Supreme Court the mother of the country and I always believed in it. You learn a lot from the institution,” the CJI said.
Talking about his family background, he said that he was the only judge in his family who was practising law, but his future family members were also practising the profession.
“I learned Sanskrit from my grandfather and wrote Shubhashital and Sanskrit. My grandfather role in my life is tremendous,” he further said.
He also said that Law Colleges should teach adjudicatory functions to their students because it will train them to enter into Judiciary at the earliest.
Earlier Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari, Chief Justice of Madras High Court said that seven Puducherry Law College alumni are presently working in Madras High Court as Judges.
Supreme Court Judges V. Ramasubramanian, M. M. Sundaresh, Madras High court judges, and judges from various Courts, Lt. Governor of Puducherry Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan, and Chief Minister N. Rangasamy and his ministers were present at the function.
Notably, Lalit was sworn in as 49th Chief Justice of India on August 27.
Justice Lalit will have a brief tenure of 74 days as the head of India’s judiciary and would demit office on 8 November.
Justice Lalit will be the second CJI who was directly elevated to the Supreme Court bench from the Bar. Justice SM Sikri became the 13th CJI in January 1971 and was the first lawyer to be promoted directly to the top court bench in March 1964.