NEW DELHI: At a time when there is greater focus on gender equality across sectors is in the country, several women have excelled across sectors including the legal profession and there are many eminent professionals who have made it big solely on the back of their merit, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta said on Saturday.
Speaking at a programme ‘Celebrating the Women in the Legal Fraternity and their Remarkable Journey’ organized by Society of Indian Law Firms Ladies Group (SLG), the Solicitor General said that historically there has been a wrong notion that women are a weaker sex. It has posed as an obstruction in the participation of women in the legal profession.
Urging people to refrain from tokenism, Mehta said: “Based solely on merit, solely on their competence, ladies have prospered, professionally, financially, socially, culturally, politically, in every which way.”
“You dont need tokenism, you deserve what you deserve. There is a discussion, some percentage to be kept for the ladies in the judiciary, but that is not an honor being conferred upon the ladies,” he said.
Speaking on the system of administration of justice, Dr. Lalit Bhasin, President, Society of Indian Law Firms, noted that 35% of the subordinate judges are women and in the case of High Courts, it is 13% and in Supreme Court there are only three women judges.
