Above: Senior Advocate Indu Malhotra

After her name was cleared by Intelligence Bureau (India Legal said it first), Senior Advocate Indu Malhotra will take oath as Supreme Court judge on Friday (April 27).

However, the name of Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High court, Justice KM Joseph has still not been cleared yet. The IB is yet to submit a report on him and it is not clear if the government would be willing to say yes to a judge who had president’s rule, imposed by this government, overturned in Uttarakhand.

The Supreme Court Collegium had submitted two names to the government to be considered for the bench. One was Malhotra, while the other was Justice Joseph.

In a first, the Collegium had decided to elevate a woman lawyer – Indu Malhotra – straight from the Bar to be made a judge of the apex court.

With Malhotra’s appointment, the Supreme Court will now have two sitting women judges, the other being Justice R Banumati. Malhotra would be one of only seven women judges that the apex court has had so far since independence.

It is pertinent to note that in the first 39 years of its existence, the Supreme Court’s judiciary had no woman member. The glass ceiling was broken in 1989 with the appointment of Justice Fathima Beevi as a judge of the Supreme Court. Justice Beevi was not just the first woman judge of the Supreme Court but also the first Muslim woman to have made it to India’s higher judiciary. The other women judges of the Supreme Court have been Justice Sujatha Manohar, Justice Ruma Pal, Justice Gyan Sudha Misra,  Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice Banumati.

Meanwhile, Senior Advocate Indira Jaising has appealed to CJI Dipak Misra not to appoint Malhotra as Supreme Court judge till government clears the name of Justice Joseph.

—India Legal Bureau