CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, NYAYA NAGAR,

MITHAPUR, PATNA-800001

COMPREHENSIVE STUDY ON THE WOMEN JUDGES OF SUPREME

COURT OF INDIA

THIS FINAL DRAFT IS SUBMITTED IN THE PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE

COURSE TITLED:

LAW AND LITERATURE

SUBMITTED TO SUBMITTED BY

DR. PRATYUSH KAUSHIK SAGAR SANJAY

FACULY OF LEGAL ENGLISH B.A L.L.B (HONS)

SEMESTER - 1

1
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. LIST OF CASES CITED………………………………………………03

2. DECLARATION………………………………………………………04
3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT……………………………………………..05
4. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES……………………………………………..06
5. HYPOTHESIS……………………………………………………………06
6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY………………………………………..06
7. WOMEN JUDGES OF SUPREME COURT AN INTRODUCTION……..07
7.1 EARLY LIFE……………………………………………………………….08-15
8. LANDMARK JUDGEMENTS……………………………………………..16-18
9. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………..19
10. BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………20

2
 LIST OF CASES CITED

 HAJ SUBSIDY
 PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES VS UNION OF INDIA & ANR
 Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India
 Indian Oxygen Limited Vs. Collector of Central Excise

3
 DECLARATIONBY THE CANDIDATE

I, hereby, declare that the work reported in the B.A L.L.B (Hons.) Project report entitled
“WOMEN JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA” submitted at
CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, PATNA is an authentic record of my
work carried out under the guidance of MR PRATYUSH KAUSHIK. I have not submitted
this work anywhere else for any other degree or diploma. I am also fully responsible for the
contents of my project report.

(Signature of the candidate)

SAGAR SANJAY

B.A L.L.B (Hons)

SEMESTER -1

CNLU, Patna

4
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the outset I acknowledge my deep sense of gratitude to my family members for giving
their moral support to me in the completion of this project report.

I would also like to thank my mentor, teacher and guide Mr Pratyush Kaushik Faculty of
Legal English and Communication skills who gave me the opportunity to do this project
during the course of which I learned a lot and was able to find a lot of new things.

I also owe the present accomplishment of my project to my CNLU librarians, who helped me
immensely with materials throughout the project and without whom we couldn’t have
completed it in the present way.

Above all I am grateful to the almighty for giving me strength and showering his blessings on
me in making this project report a success.

THANK YOU,

SAGAR SANJAY

B.A L.L.B (HONS)

SEMESTER -1

5
 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

 To know about the women judges of the Supreme Court of India

 To Know about the background of the women judges
 To know about the landmark cases that they were involved in

HYPOTHESIS

The researcher tends to presume that the women judges of the Supreme Court Of India are
very small in number.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The researcher has done doctrinal type of research in which he has gone through the primary
as well as secondary sources. While doing this project, the researcher consulted various case
laws as the primary source and commentaries on them. The doctrinal type of research allows
the researcher to read, analyse and compare all that is written and present.

6
 WOMEN JUDGES OF SUPREME COUT OF INDIA: AN INTRODUCTION

The Supreme Court has done itself no favours by not considering the women who are
excelling in the bar. - Rebecca John. The Supreme Court of India in its 69 years life time has
seen a total of 8 women judges the first of which was Justice Fatima Beevi who was
appointed as a Supreme Court judge in the year 1989. Before being appointed as a judge in
the Supreme court of India she served as a justice in the Kerala High Court for six years. She
was also the first muslim woman to be appointed to any of the higher judiciaries in our
country. She in turn was followed by Justice Sujata Manohar who had served as the Chief
Justice of Kerala High Court. She was also appointed as the Chief Justice of Bombay High
Court the first woman to hold that post. Thereafter Justice Ruma Pal was appointed who also
earlier served as a judge in the Calcutta High court and later went on to become the serving
female judge of the supreme court of India. Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra who was appointed
later on served as a judge in the Patna High Court and the Rajasthan High Court before she
was elevated as the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai
served as a judge in the Bombay High Court before being appointed as a judge of the
Supreme Court of India. At present there are three women sitting judges in the Supreme
Court of India. Justice R Banumathi who served as a judge in the Madras High Court and as a
Chief Justice in the Jharkhand High Court, Justice Indu Malhotra who was a member of the
High Level Committee in the Ministry of Law and Justice and was the first female judge who
was elevated directly from the Bar Council of India and Justice Indira Banerjee who was a
judge in the Calcutta High Court and the Delhi High Court before being appointed as the
Chief Justice of Madras High Court . This is for the first time it has ever happened in the
Indian judiciary that there are three sitting women judges in the Supreme Court of India since
the time it came into existence. It has been 69 years since the supreme court of India was
established on 28th January 1950 through the constitution of India and this is for the first time
that it has witnessed three women sitting judges.

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER:

7
 1. JUSTICE FATHIMA BEEVI:

Fathima Beevi (born 30 April 1927) was a former judge of the supreme court of India.
Appointed to the apex Court in 1989, she became the first female judge to be a part of the
supreme court of India and the first Muslim woman to be appointed to any of the higher
judiciaries in country. Fathima Beevi was born on 30 April 1927
at Pathanamthitta, Travancore, now in the Indian State of Kerala, as the daughter of
Annaveetil Meera Sahib and Khadeja Bibi.

She did her schooling in Catholicate High School, Pathanamthitta and got her B.Sc. from
University College, Thiruvananthapuram. She obtained her B.L. from Government Law
College Thiruvananthapuram . Beevi was enrolled as Advocate on 14 November 1950. She
began her career in the lower judiciary in Kerala. She was appointed as the Munsiff in the
Kerala Sub-ordinate Judicial Services in May, 1958. She was promoted as the Sub-ordinate
Judge in 1968 and as the Chief Judicial Magistrate in 1972, as District & Sessions Judge in
1974.

She was further appointed as the Judicial Member of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal in
January, 1980. She was then elevated to the High Court as a Judge on 4 August 1983.

She became permanent Judge of the High Court on 14 May 1984. She retired as the Judge of
the High Court on 29 April 1989 but was further elevated to the Supreme Court as a Judge on
6 October 1989 where she retired on 29 April 19921. She later went on to become Governor
of Tamil Nadu on 25 January 1997. As the Governor of the state, she rejected the mercy
petitions filed by the four condemned prisoners in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The
prisoners had sent the mercy petitions to the Governor, pleading her to exercise her power
under Article 161 of the Constitution (the Governor's power to grant pardon).2 She was
embroiled in controversy when she gave a clean chit to the law and order situation in Tamil
Nadu that prompted the ire of the Centralgovernment. The Minister for Law, Arun
Jaitley asked for her resignation. Later she left her office as Governor of the state under
controversial circumstances of her accepting of Jyalalithaa's of assembly majority after the
elections and over the arrest of Karunanidhi who pitched for her appointment four years
ago. Jayalalitha defended the state Governor's decision to invite her to form the government.
She said "She is a former supreme court judge. She herself is a legal expert. Nobody needed

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathima_Beevi
2
The constitution of India 1950

8
to teach her about law or the constitution. Fathima Beevi submitted her resignation after the
Union Cabinet decided to recommend to the President to recall the Governor for having
failed to discharge her constitutional obligation. As the Governor of the state she had also
served as the Chancellor of Madras University. It was reported by university sources that the
Vice-Chancellor, P.T. Manoharan, had decided to quit his office in the wake of the
Chancellor allegedly withholding her approval to the Syndicate’s decision to establish a new
department for contemporary Tamil literature. She had also served as the Chairman of Kerala
Commission for Backward Classes(1993) and member of National Human Rights
Commission ( 1993). She received Hon. D Litt and Mahila Shiromani Award in 1990. She
was also awarded Bharat Jyoti Award.

2. JUSTICE SUJATA MANOHAR:

Sujata Vasant Manohar (born 28 August 1934) is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of
India (retired in 1999) and a former member of the National Human Rights Commission of
India. She was born into a family with a strong legal background - her father Kantilal
Thakoredas Desai would later become the second Chief Justice of the High Court of Gujarat.
She graduated from Elphinstone College, Bombay, and then went to Lady Margaret
Hall, Oxford where she read Philosophy, Politics and Economics.3 After Oxford, she was
called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn having simultaneously passed all papers in Parts 1 & 2 of
the Bar Exam. She returned to India where she began practice in 1958 on the original side of
the Bombay High Court. She dealt primarily with commercial matters, but also took many
family law cases under legal aid schemes. This was before India had a formal state legal aid
programme, so she voluntarily associated herself with over 30 non-governmental
organisations.

After around 20 years of practice, which included a substantial amount of public interest and
pro-bono work, she was appointed a judge of the High Court of Bombay in 1978, the first
woman judge of that court. In January, 1994, she was appointed Chief Justice of the High
Court of Bombay, the first woman to hold that post. In April, 1994, she was transferred as the

3
Legalindia.com

9
Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court, again the first woman to hold that post. At the end of
1994 (November), after 16 years as a High Court judge, she was appointed as a judge of
the Supreme Court of India, the highest Indian court, from which post she retired in 1999.

As a judge, she took a strongly independent stance, defending the rule of law against political
and public pressures. In one case, she was called upon to decide on the constitutionality of
one aspect of India's affirmative action programme. The government of the day proposed to
require Universities to implement a system of quotas for admission to research degrees. This
meant that available places would be parcelled out to students based on their caste and
religion, not just on their merit. Justice Manohar ruled this unconstitutional, despite a strong
backlash from certain interest groups, who, in a show of public umbrage, burnt her effigy.

After her retirement, she was appointed to the National Human Rights Commission. She is an
honorary fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and an honorary bencher of Lincoln's Inn,
London. She is also a patron of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal .

3. JUSTICE RUMA PAL:

Justice Ruma Pal (born 3 June 1941) was a judge of the Supreme Court of India until her
retirement on 3 June 2006. She read for her B.C.L degree at St Anne's College, Oxford and
started practice in 1968 in Civil, Revenue, Labour and Constitutional matters in the Calcutta
High Court. Her husband Samaraditya Pal is well knowned barrister of Kolkata. After a long
and distinguished career as an advocate, she was appointed Judge in the Calcutta High
Court on 6 August 1990. She was further nominated to Supreme Court of India on 28 January
2000, the day of the Golden Jubilee of the court. Justice Pal has delivered many critical
judgements in famous cases. She has written on a number of human rights issues. She is also
a member of the International Forum of Women Judges.

Pal edited many text-books for legal studies including famous book on Indian Constitutional
Law by Prof. M P Jain, which is considered as an authority.[3] She became the Chancellor
of Sikkim University and one of the trustees of legal diversity non profit
organization Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access.

10
 4. JUSTICE GYAN SUDHA MISHRA:

Justice Gyan Sudha Misra is a former Supreme Court judge of India. Justice Misra was
elevated as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India on 30 April 2010. Justice Misra has passed
several landmark and notable judgements in the Supreme Court of India including
judgements on conflict of interest in the Srinivasan-BCCI matter, landmark euthanasia
judgement - Aruna shaunbaug matter and most recently the Delhi Uphaar fire tragedy
dissenting judgment holding the management liable for colossal loss of human lives and
directing them to pay heavy compensation to be used for social causes like building trauma
center.

Justice Misra enrolled as an advocate in the Bihar State Bar Council in 1972 at a time when
the legal profession for women in India was rather uncommon and the profession was
primarily considered to be a male bastion. Prior to her appointment as a Judge, Misra was
also actively associated with the activities of the lawyers and the legal profession and hence
was elected as a Treasurer, Joint Secretary, and Member Executive Committee of the
Supreme Court Bar Association, several times, which is the premier association of lawyers in
the country.

In recognition of her services and standing as a lawyer for more than 21 years she was
appointed a Judge of the Patna High Court in the State of Bihar on 16 March 1994 but soon
thereafter was transferred to the High Court of Rajasthan State in view of the then prevailing
transfer policy of judges in the Indian Judiciary. While functioning as a judge in
the Rajasthan High Court, she held several important assignments as Company Judge, Judge
for Arbitration matters, Constitutional matters and was also appointed and continued as
chairman of the Advisory Board constituted under the National Security Act. Misra had also
been invited to participate in the South Asian Conference on invitation of the UNICEF held
at Kathmandu (Nepal) on the subject of "Ending Violence against the Women and Children".
In 1998 she also represented India, as a guest speaker, in the Conference of the International
Association of Women Judges held at Ottawa in Canada where a variety of issues relating to
women and children in the world at large were the subject matter of discussion and
deliberations.

11
After 14 years of successful tenure as a judge of the Rajasthan High Court, Misra was
elevated as Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court at Ranchi in the State of Jharkhand on
13 July 2008 and functioned in that capacity till 29 April 2010.

As Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court, while hearing PIL matters, Misra passed large
number of prominent and effective orders, which resulted in initiation of probe by the
Enforcement Directorate against eminent persons involving significant financial implications.
In one of the PIL matters while relying upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case
of St. Mary's School, New Delhi vs Election Commission of India, the bench presided over
by Misra ruled that the school building and the school buses would not be utilized during the
elections on any working day as it upsets the routine studies and also hinders the school's
administrative work. Treating a letter from Tapasi Choudhary to be a PIL relating to sensitive
matter of mysterious death of her daughter Mousami Choudhary, a trainee air hostess of
AHA Airhostess Training Institute, Jamshedpur at Hotel Sonnet of Jamshedpur, Misra sitting
in a division bench with justice D.K. Sinha directed for CBI probe into the matter and for
filing charge-sheet.

As Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court, Misra was invited to be a member of the
Indian delegation, headed by the Chief Justice of India along with other judges, which visited
Australia to participate in the Conference for "Protecting Rights and Promoting Access to
Justice" project held between 18–27 September 2009.

While functioning as a judge, Chief Justice of the High Court and Supreme Court Judge,
Misra has demonstrated through her judgments and orders that she is a strong believer of the
principle that social justice, which is one of the objectives of the Indian Constitution certainly
helps us in bringing about a just society by removing imbalances in social, educational,
economic and political life of the people and protecting the rights of the weak, aged, destitute,
women, children and other under-privileged persons of the state against the ruthless treatment
which is enshrined in the preamble to the constitution.

5. JUSTICE RANJANA PRAKASH DESAI:

12
Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai is former judge of the Supreme Court of India. She served as a
Judge of Supreme Court of India from 13 September 2011 to 29 October 2014. Now, she has
been appointed as Chairperson of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity and assumed the
charge on 1 December 2014. Her father Shri S.G. Samant who was an eminent criminal
lawyer, she started her legal career on July 30, 1973 as a junior of Justice Pratap.

Desai was appointed as a Government Pleader in 1979, post which as Special Public
Prosecutor for preventive detention matters in 1986 and then elevated to the Bench
of Bombay High Court on April 15, 1996.

Desai took charge as chairperson of Appellate Tribunal for Electricity on December 1, 2014
in New Delhi. Before this she served as a judge of Bombay High Court from 1996 till 2011,
after which she was promoted as a judge of the Supreme Court of India4 On 8 May 2012, the
Supreme Court bench composed of Ranjana Desai and Altamas Kabir ordered the
government to end the Haj subsidy by 2022. On 27 September 2013, in a landmark
judgement, a three-judge bench consisting of the Chief Justice P Sathasivam and
Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Ranjan Gogoi of the Supreme Court of India ruled
that the right to register a "none of the above" vote in elections should apply; the court said
that Negative voting would lead to systemic change in polls and political parties will be
forced to project clean candidates. The Election Commission has said that the judgement will
be implemented immediately.

6. JUSTICE R. BANUMATHI:

R. Banumathi (born 20 July 1955) is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. She is
from Tamil Nadu and the sixth woman to be a Judge of the Indian Supreme Court. Earlier,
she had served as the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court and judge at Madras High Court.
She is also serving as the Chancellor of Maharashtra National Law University, Aurangabad..
Banumathi joined Tamil Nadu Higher Judicial Service in 1988 as a direct recruit district
judge. As a sessions judge, she headed one-person commission on police excess by Special
Task Force in Chinnampathy, Coimbatore district in 1995-96.

In April 2003, she was then elevated as judge of the Madras High Court. She dealt with the
case on banning Jallikattu or bull hugging sport. In November 2013, she was transferred to

4
https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Ranjana_Desai

13
the Jharkhand High Court and was appointed Chief Justice of that court at the same time. In
August 2014, she was elevated to the Supreme Court of India after her name had been
recommended for the post by the collegium headed by then Chief Justice of India, R M
Lodha. She is only the second woman sessions judge to rise to the country's highest court.

7. JUSTICE INDU MALHOTRA:

Indu Malhotra is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. Prior to her elevation as a Judge, she
was a senior counsel practising in the same court for the past thirty years. She was the second
woman to be designated as Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in 2007. She authored the
third edition of a commentary The Law and Practice of Arbitration and
Conciliation (2014). She specialises in the law of arbitration, and has appeared in various
domestic and international commercial arbitrations. In December 2016 was made a member
of the High Level Committee (HLC) in the Ministry of Law and Justice by the Government
of India to review Institutionalization of Arbitration Mechanism in India. She had been
unanimously recommended for appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court. She is the first
woman judge to be elevated directly from the Bar.5

She was born in 1956 in Bangalore to Om Prakash Malhotra, Senior Advocate in Supreme
Court and distinguished author and late Satya Malhotra as their youngest child. She did her
schooling from Carmel Convent School, New Delhi. Afterwards, she did her B.A. (Hons.)
Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, and later completed her
Masters in Political Science from the same college. Indu Malhotra joined the legal profession
in 1983, and was enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi. In 1988, she qualified as an
Advocate-on-Record in the Supreme Court, and secured the 1st position in the examination,
for which she was awarded the Mukesh Goswami Memorial Prize on National Law Day. She
has been a member of various Committees constituted by the Supreme Court from time to
time. She is one of the members of the Vishakha Committee constituted by the Supreme
Court of India. She was nominated as a member of the Editorial Committee for publication of

5
"Collegium recommends Indu Malhotra, KM Joseph J. for appointment to Supreme Court". Bench
& Bar. Bangalore, India. 11 January 2018. Archived from the original on 29 April 2018. Retrieved 12
January 2018.

14
the official journal "Nyaya Deep" of the National Legal Services Authority during the period
2004–2013. She was nominated as a member of the Central Authority of the National Legal
Services Authority, a statutory body constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act,
1987 on 7 January 2009. She is engaged in social and charitable work, and is a Trustee
of Save Life Foundation, which is a non-profit, non-Governmental organisation. Save Life
has been formed with the objective of prevention of road accidents, and formulating a system
for providing immediate post-accident response to save the life of the victims. Indu Malhotra
has authored a Commentary on the Law and Practice of Arbitration in India, which was
released on 7 April 2014 by the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India. She has published articles in
various journals and magazines.

8. JUSTICE INDIRA BANERJEE:

Justice Indira Banerjee is presently a Judge in the Supreme Court of India, the 8th female
Judge in history and the 3rd female Judge of the Supreme Court of India at present. She was
the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, the second woman to hold the postition
in India. before being elevated as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India. Indira Banerjee was
born on 24 September 1957. She did her schooling at the Loreto House in Kolkata. She
pursued her higher education at the Presidency College, Kolkata and Calcutta University's
College of Law. She was enrolled as an advocate on 5 July 1985 and practised before
the Calcutta High Court.6 Indira Banerjee was appointed as a permanent Judge of the Calcutta
High Court on 5 February 2002 and transferred to the Delhi High Court with effect from 8
August 2016. She was elevated as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and assumed
charge on 5 April 2017.

Justice Banerjee succeeded Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul as the Chief Justice of the Madras
High Court, after he was elevated to the Supreme Court of India. She is the second woman to
head the chartered High Court, after Justice Kanta Kumari Bhatnagar who headed the Court
between June and November 1992

LANDMARK JUDGEMENTS

6
"Justice Indira Banerjee sworn-in as Chief Justice of Madras HC". Thehindubusinessline.com. 5
April 2017.

15
 1. HAJ SUBSIDY7

The Supreme Court struck down the government’s policy of giving subsidies to Haj
pilgrims and directed that it be progressively “eliminated" within a period of 10 years.
“We hold that this policy is best done away with," a bench of justices Altamas Kabir
and Ranjana Prakash Desai held.
The bench also directed the government to reduce to two the number of its
representatives in the Prime Minister’s goodwill delegation. It said it will look into the
functioning of Haj Committee of India and it process for selecting people for Haj
pilgrimage.
The bench while hearing the plea of the Centre had expanded the purview of the plea
and decided to look into the legality of the government’s policy on granting subsidies
to Haj pilgrims.
During the hearing in the case, the Centre had defended the policy of giving subsidies
to the Haj pilgrims and had said it had framed guidelines so that people get subsidies
only once in their lifetime.
In an affidavit, the Centre had told the court that it has decided to restrict Haj
pilgrimage at government subsidy to Muslims only as a “once in a lifetime" affair as
against the existing policy of “once in five years". It had said the new guidelines have
been framed to ensure that priority is given to those applicants who have never
performed Haj.
The government, however, had refrained from disclosing the amount of subsidy being
incurred by it for 2012, saying, “The exact figure in respect of the travel subsidy to
the pilgrims going through Haj Committee of India for 2012 will be known after the
Hajis completed their Haj journey and return to India."
The apex court had earlier expressed its dismay at the practice of sending official
delegations to accompany the pilgrims and had asked the Centre to furnish entire
details regarding Haj subsidy, as also about the criteria adopted.
“These goodwill delegations need to be scrapped altogether. They are no longer
relevant. Even a team of 9 to 10 persons is not required," the bench had observed. The
bench had also pulled up the Centre’s practice of “politicising" Haj by permitting

7
https://www.livemint.com/Politics/trXuDTfMqI7qMUip3wNd7H/SC-strikes-down-Haj-
subsidy.html

16
 official delegations to accompany the pilgrims, for which the government offers huge
subsidy, saying, “It’s a bad religious practice."

2. PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES VS UNION OF INDIA & ANR8

On 27 September 2013, in a landmark judgement, a three-judge bench consisting of the Chief

Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Ranjan Gogoi of
the Supreme Court of India ruled that the right to register a "none of the above" vote in
elections should apply. The court said that Negative voting would lead to systemic change in
polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates

In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court allowed voters to cast negative vote by pressing
a button saying none of the candidates is worthy of his vote. Here are the key highlights of
the judgement.
Citizens have right to cast negative vote rejecting all candidates contesting polls.
Election Commission to provide 'none of the above options' at the end of the list of
candidates in electronic voting machines (EVMs) and ballot papers.
Negative voting would foster purity and vibrancy of elections and ensure wide participation:
SC
Negative voting would lead to systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to
project clean candidates: SC
Concept of negative voting is prevalent in 13 countries and even in India, parliamentarians
are given an option to press the button for abstaining while voting takes place in the House.
If right to vote is statutory right, right to reject candidate is fundamental right of speech and
expression under Constitution: SC.
Negative voting would put unscrupulous elements and impersonators out of the polls: SC
Secrecy of votes cast under the no option category must be maintained by the Election
Commission.
No light thrown on a situation in case the votes cast under no option head outnumber the
votes got by the candidates.

8
Indiankanoon.org

17
 3. Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India9

It is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of India in 2018 that decriminalised all
consensual sex among adults in private, including homosexual sex.[1]

The court was asked to determine the constitutionality of Section 377 of the Indian Penal
Code, a colonial-era law which, among other things, criminalised homosexual acts as an
"unnatural offence". While the statute criminalises all anal sex and oral sex, including
between opposite-sex couples, it largely affected same-sex relationships.[2] On 6 September
2018, the court unanimously declared the law unconstitutional "in so far as it criminalises
consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex".[3] The verdict was hailed as a
landmark decision for LGBT rights in India. The court found that the criminalisation of
sexual acts between consenting adults violated the right to equality guaranteed by
the Constitution of India. While reading the judgment, Chief Justice Misra pronounced that
the court found "[c]riminalising carnal intercourse" to be "irrational, arbitrary and manifestly
unconstitutional".[2] The court ruled that LGBT people in India are entitled to all
constitutional rights, including the liberties protected by the Constitution of India.

4. Indian Oxygen Limited Vs. Collector of Central Excise10

The appellants submitted a refund claim for Rs. 40,035.87 on account of central excise duty
paid on the clearances of liquid Oxygen gas supplied to Indian Iron and Steel Company (in
short HSCO) Limited, Kulti from 1.4.1982 to 10.6.1982. M/s. IISCO Limited used to receive
supplies of oxygen gas free of duty from the appellants

"Therefore, the expenses incurred on account of the several factors which have contributed to
its value upto the date of sale, which apparently would be the date of delivery, are liable to be
included. Consequently where the sale is effected at the factory gate, expenses incurred by
the assessee up to the date of delivery on account of storage charges, outward handling
charges, interest on inventories (stocks carried by the manufacturer after clearance), charges

9
Livemint.com
10
https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/4559/indian-oxygen-limited-vs-collector-central

18
for other services after delivery to the buyer, namely after-sales service and marketing and
selling organisation expenses including advertisement expenses can not be deducted. It will
be noted that advertisement expenses, marketing and selling organisation expenses and after-
sales service promote the marketability of the article and enter into its value in the trade.
Where the sale in the course of wholesale trade is effected by the assessee through its sales
organisation at a place or places outside the factory gate, the expenses incurred by the
assessee upto the date of delivery under the aforesaid heads cannot, on the same grounds, be
deducted. But the assessee will be entitled to a deduction on account of the cost of
transportation of the excisable article from the factory gate to the place or places where it is
sold. The cost of transportation will include the cost of insurance on the freight for
transportation of the goods from the factory gate to the place or places of delivery."11

CONCLUSION

11
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/9732/

19
The Supreme court of India was established on 28th January 1950 and since its existence it has
seen a total of 8 female judges in a span of 69 years. The total strength of the supreme court
when it came into being was 31 including the chief justice and the first woman to be appointed
to the supreme court was Justice Fathima Beevi in 1989. That is the first female judge was
appointed to the supreme court after a period of 39 years since the supreme court came into
being. Fathima Beevi was the first Muslim woman to be appointed to any of the higher
judiciaries in the country. Justice Sujata Manohar was the Chief Justice of the Kerala High
Court and Ruma pal is the longest serving women judge in the Supreme Court till now. Justice
gyan Sudha Mishra was the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court as was Justice R.
Banumathi. Justice Indu Malhotra was a member of the high level committee in the Ministry
of Law and Justice. She was also the first female judge to be directly elevated to the supreme
court from the Bar council of India. she was a senior councel practising in the same court for
the past thirty years. She was the second woman to be designated as Senior Advocate by the
Supreme Court in 2007. She authored the third edition of a commentary The Law and Practice
of Arbitration and Conciliation (2014). She specialises in the law of arbitration, and has
appeared in various domestic and international commercial arbitrations. Justice Indira
Banerjee is presently a Judge in the Supreme Court of India, the 8th female Judge in history
and the 3rd female Judge of the Supreme Court of India at present. Justice Banerjee succeeded
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, after he was
elevated to the Supreme Court of India. Thus the number of female judges of in the supreme
court has always been a low and the time has come that morenumber of female judges should
be elevated to the supreme court so that they have parity with the male number of judges.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathima_Beevi

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2. The constitution of India 1950
3. · www.indiankanoon.org

4. www.legalserviceindia.com
5. Livemint.com
6. https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/4559/indian-oxygen-limited-vs-collector-central

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