NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has on Thursday directed Delhi High Court Bar Association to hold a general body meeting within 10 days to reserve post of treasurer and another post for women members in the office bearers.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and Ujjal Bhuyan also ordered that out of ten Executive Committee members, at least three women members would be included, while out of three women members of EC, at least one is a senior designated advocate.
The court was considering pleas by Shobha Gupta and others seeking reservation for women lawyers in Delhi's Bar bodies.
The bench had on Wednesday asked the Delhi High Court Bar Association to consider reserving post of Vice-President for women lawyers in the upcoming elections, while observing that it was disappointing that since the year 1962, there had not been even a single woman President of the Bar.
The court earlier suggested for reserving the post of Vice President for the women members.
The petitioners led by senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, however, said the post was ceremonial only. The court then suggested the post of treasurer.
Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur represented the DHCBA.
On May 2, 2024, the Supreme Court had directed for reserving one-third of the posts in the SC Bar Association for women members, saying being a premier institution, it cannot remain static for decades and should reflect timely reforms to meet with the challenges.
A bench led by Justice Surya Kant had directed that one post of the office bearers of SCBA shall be exclusively reserved for women by turn and on a rotation basis. The court stated that this exclusive women reservation will start with the post of treasurer for the 2024-25 elections, scheduled on May 16.
