The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Bar Council of India to a petition by a woman lawyer to formulate a social security scheme for women advocates in coordination with the State Bar Councils.
However, a Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, refused to examine the larger plea by advocate Indu Kaul to direct the Ministry of Home Affairs to provide police security to women lawyers beyond working hours on the court premises all over the country.
The Chief Justice said such an issue would be too “unwieldy” and not implementable. “How many courts are there all together,” he asked the lawyer. Ms. Kaul’s lawyer said she did not know the number of courts, but she knew that the percentage of women practising law is only 12.5%. “Without proper amenities, the number may reduce... The situation for women lawyers are bad. In Saket, a woman lawyer was raped,” counsel said.
