Create enabling conditions for women lawyers: SC
The Supreme Court on Friday stressed the need to create conditions that enable women advocates to discharge their professional responsibilities effectively, safely and on equal terms.
Taking note of issues raised in a plea that flagged the absence of adequately equipped ladies’ Bar rooms and other essential facilities in most of the courts, tribunals and commissions across the country, the apex court said the concerns raised could not be brushed aside as a matter of mere convenience.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice V Mohana said the legal profession has witnessed a steady and encouraging increase in the participation of women over the last few decades.
“However, the mere opening of doors alone cannot be a sufficient cause for celebration,” the bench said.
“In order for their participation to be made meaningful, it must be accompanied by the creation of conditions that enable women advocates to discharge their professional responsibilities effectively, safely, and on equal terms,” it said.
The top court said availability of adequately equipped spaces for women professionals within the court complexes was one such indispensable condition.
The bench issued a notice to the Centre, all states and Union Territories and others, seeking their responses on the plea.
It said a court complex may simply appear to be a designated venue where legal proceedings are conducted, but those who live their lives in service of the law know it to be much more.
“It functions as a workplace where substantial portions of their professional lives are spent and, not infrequently, assumes the character of a second home,” the bench said, while highlighting that most of the advocates spend long hours within these premises.
It said the absence of a designated area where such basic facilities are made available to women, disproportionately impacts them and may, in certain cases, discourage them from continuing practice.
“The provision of such essential facilities prima facie bears a direct nexus with the fundamental guarantee of life and dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution,” the bench said.
It said the expression ‘life’ under Article 21 has consistently received an expansive interpretation from the apex court and has been understood to encompass those conditions which enable an individual to live and work with dignity.
“When women advocates are required to spend substantial portions of their day within court premises, the availability of basic infrastructure necessary for their comfort, privacy, safety, and professional functioning assumes utmost significance,” the bench said.
It said the issue, therefore, transcends the realm of administrative convenience and touches upon values that lie at the heart of the constitutional guarantee of dignity and equal participation in public life.
The bench noted that the plea filed by a group of women advocates have raised issues concerning the accessibility, inclusiveness and long-term sustainability of women lawyers in the legal profession.
It said the petitioners have placed on record the results of a survey undertaken by them through a structured questionnaire titled “Form for Basic Provisions and Amenities”.
The bench said the survey was circulated amongst women advocates practising across different parts of the country and was supplemented by physical visits to several court complexes.
It noted the data so collected revealed that in a majority of court complexes, either no dedicated ladies’ Bar room existed or the facilities provided were wholly inadequate, lacking essentials such as sufficient seating arrangements, clean washrooms, changing spaces, nursing facilities and other amenities necessary for effective discharge of professional responsibilities by women advocates.
While posting the matter for July 17, the bench requested Attorney General R Venkataramani, advocate generals for all the states and standing counsel for the UTs to remain present and render their assistance in the matter.
