Indira Jaising, India’s first woman additional solicitor general, issued a stinging rebuke to New Delhi for recently shelving several women lawyers from the advisory group.

Wrong message

According to a report yesterday in The Times of India newspaper, Ms Jaising said: ‘This can only send a very wrong message to the [legal] profession as a whole and to women in particular that there is no place for them in the profession ... the perception among people is that only those with powerful godfathers or godmothers (of which there may be very few) can progress in the profession.’

Fairness

The report said Ms Jaising was not calling for positive discrimination in favour of women, but that the government must guard against outright discrimination against female lawyers.
‘I have no doubt that women lawyers can assist in formulating policies which are just and fair to all concerned,’ the newspaper quoted her as saying, before pointing out that women are also ‘grossly underrepresented’ on India’s judicial bench.