Apex Court Mandates 30% Reservation In State Bar Councils' Elections For Women Advocates

The Supreme Court, today, mandated that 30% of the seats in all State Bar Councils, where elections have not yet been scheduled, must be reserved for women advocates.

For the current election year, the Court specifically ordered the reservation to be implemented as, i) 20% of the seats must be filled through the election of women members and, ii) 10% of the seats will be filled through co-option.

The Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi ordered, "We have to ensure that women members who are contesting/proposing to contest elections in the four Bar Councils of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab & Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana, will contest the elections with full spirit. The Advocate-voters will also endeavour to ensure that adequate representation is provided to the women members of the bar. The elections to the Bar Councils of Bihar and Chhattisgarh are also notified. So these two bar councils are also to be excluded. In so far as the remaining State Bar Councils are concerned, it is directed that women must receive 30% representation. The 20% of these seats will be filled by way of election, and10% will be filled through co-option...A proposal explaining how the co-option of women advocates will be carried out shall be placed before this Court."

Senior Advocate Manan Kumar Mishra, the Chairman of the Bar Council of India (BCI), informed the Court that the BCI fundamentally supports having at least 30% reservation for women in the State Bar Councils. However, for the current year, he submitted that the BCI would prefer to fill these reserved seats through co-option (selection) rather than elections. He specifically proposed that 15% of the seats be filled by co-opting women members. The Bench partially agreed but restricted the co-option mechanism to only 10% of the seats, implying the remaining reservation must come through elections, as specified in their earlier order.

The Court further directed that a co-option proposal be submitted to it for Councils where the number of women advocates may be insufficient. However, the Court decided not to enforce this reservation in the six Bar Councils where the election process had already commenced.

Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, representing the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, expressed reservations regarding a sweeping order mandating 30% women's reservation across all State Bar Councils. She argued that such a blanket directive might not be practical or feasible because numerous states have a significantly low number or percentage of practising women advocates.

Senior Advocate Shobha Gupta, Advocate Sriram P and AoR Deepak Prakash appeared for Petitioner-Yogamaya MG. AoR Dr Charu Mathur appeared for Petitioner-Shehla Chaudhary

In September 2024, the Court issued notice in the public interest litigation (PIL), raising concerns over the under-representation of women, queer individuals, persons with disabilities, and marginalised communities in the Bar Council of India (BCI) and State Bar Councils. The petitioner, also a member of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Yogamaya M.G., urged the court to take cognizance of this issue and address the lack of proportional representation in these bodies.

Cause Title: Yogamaya M.G v. Union of India [W.P.(C) No. 581/2024, Diary No. 38583/2024] and Shehla Chaudhary v. Union Of India [W.P.(C) No. 1060/2025]