The Supreme Court on Tuesday welcomed its first woman judge in more than five years with the swearing-in of Senior Advocate V Mohana, whose elevation has increased the number of serving women judges in the Apex Court to two.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant administered the oath of office and secrecy to Justice Mohana along with four other newly appointed judges, including Justice Sheel Nagu, Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Arun Palli, following the approval of their appointments by the Central Government on the recommendation of the Supreme Court Collegium.
Justice Mohana has become the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court since August 2021, when Justice Hima Kohli, Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Bela M Trivedi were elevated to the Apex Court. Prior to her appointment, Justice Nagarathna was the only serving woman judge in the Supreme Court following the retirements of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Bela Trivedi.
Her elevation is also significant because she joins a small group of advocates who have been directly elevated from the Bar to the Supreme Court Bench without prior judicial experience as a High Court judge. She is only the second woman lawyer in the history of the Supreme Court to be directly elevated from the Bar, after former Supreme Court judge Justice Indu Malhotra, who was appointed to the Court in April 2018.
With Justice Mohana’s appointment, the Supreme Court now has two serving women judges. The highest number of women judges to serve simultaneously in the Court remains four, a figure achieved between August 2021 and September 2022 when Justice Indira Banerjee, Justice Hima Kohli, Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Bela M Trivedi were on the Bench together.
A first-generation lawyer, Justice Mohana began her legal career in 1988 after graduating from Coimbatore Law College. She initially practised in Coimbatore before shifting to New Delhi in 1992, where she joined the chambers of Justice Indu Malhotra, then a practising advocate who later became a Supreme Court judge. She also worked in the chamber of Senior Advocate CS Vaidyanathan and qualified as an Advocate-on-Record in 1996. The Supreme Court designated her as a Senior Advocate in 2015.
Over the course of her practice, Justice Mohana appeared in several high-profile constitutional and service law matters, including cases involving service conditions of women officers in the armed forces, property rights of senior citizens, and challenges relating to the hijab restrictions in educational institutions in Karnataka.
Justice Mohana is the 12th woman judge in the history of the Supreme Court and is expected to remain in office until her retirement in June 2031.
Apart from Justice Mohana, the Supreme Court also inducted Justice Sheel Nagu, former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court; Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, former Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court; Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva, former Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court; and Justice Arun Palli, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
The appointments have increased the Supreme Court’s working strength to 37 judges against its enhanced sanctioned strength of 38. The sanctioned strength was recently increased from 34 to 38 judges, including the Chief Justice of India (CJI). However, two vacancies are expected to arise later this month following the retirement of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Pankaj Mithal.
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