Kottayam (Kerala), April 25 In another first for the country, an all-women advocates panel has been elected as the office-bearers of the Pala Bar Association in Kerala's Kottayam district.
When votes were counted to elect the new Bar Association at Pala, the all-women panel, led by advocate Usha Menon, defeated K. Josekutty.
Menon polled 163 votes and was elected as the new President of the Pala Bar Association, defeating Josekutty, who polled 70 votes only.
All 15 elected members of Menon’s panel are women. Incidentally, this remarkable win by Menon comes at a time when cases are pending in the Supreme Court for ensuring women's representation in bar association posts.
Last year, the Supreme Court mandated that at least one-third posts in the Supreme Court Bar Association shall be reserved for women lawyers.
This direction was later extended to several other Bar Associations, such as of the Delhi High Court and in Karnataka.
Out of 788 judges in high courts in India, only 107 are women.
In the Kerala High Court, of the 45 judges, only three are women.
Incidentally women constitute around 15 per cent of enrolled lawyers in India, while in Kerala, 28 per cent of lawyers are women.
A 2021 study conducted revealed that only 2.04 per cent of the elected representatives in the 21 State Bar Councils are women.
Recently, senior Supreme Court advocate Menaka Guruswamy had pointed out that without equality and equal partnership at home, women will not be able to sustain and persist at the Bar.
However, a positive point is that more girls have started appearing in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). In 2011, while the girl participation rate stood at 32 per cent, it has, in the past few years, well exceeded the 50 per cent mark.
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