Spotlight is a series where we shine the, well, spotlight on members of the legal fraternity who made the news over the past week.

This past week, the spotlight fell on Senior Advocate V Mohana who was recommended by the Supreme Court collegium for appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court of India.

Now that the Central government has notified her appointment, she will join two very exclusive clubs: she will join the small group of legal minds elevated directly from the bar rather than from the judiciary itself and she will become one of the very few women to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court.

Direct elevation from the Bar

The trajectory for a Supreme Court judge typically involves years of service as a High Court judge before even being considered for elevation to the apex court. Direct elevation from the bar to the bench of the Supreme Court is extremely rare.

While Article 124(3)(c) of the Constitution of India permits the appointment of advocates with at least ten years of experience practicing before High Courts, fewer than a dozen individuals have ever been appointed in this manner.

Since the very first Chief Justice of India was sworn in on Republic Day, 1950, 284 judges including the current 32 sitting judges, have served on the Bench of the apex court.

Of this, only 10 judges, or 3.5% were elevated directly from the Bar.

The judges who were appointed directly from the Bar are Justices SM Sikri, SC Roy, Kuldip Singh, Santosh Hegde, Rohinton Nariman, UU Lalit, L Nageswara Rao, Indu Malhotra, PS Narasimha and KV Viswanathan.

Mohana is only the 11th person to traverse this less trodden path.

Her direct elevation coupled with the presence of two others elevated in a similar fashion, Justices Narasimha and Viswanathan, could infuse the bench with the practical sensibilities that can only be earned by a lawyer with decades of practice at the Supreme Court.

Women's representation on the Bench

It is common knowledge that the legal profession has for a long time been an old boys' club with women not only facing barriers to entry but also roadblocks in their careers.

While representation on the bench alone is not nearly enough, it is a strong signal to other women in the legal profession and young girls aspiring to become lawyers that the higher judiciary is accessible to them. Women judges also bring their unique lived experiences and perceptions to the job, making the justice delivery system a more inclusive space.

The participation of women in legal profession as lawyers has increased in the last decade. However, their representation on the bench of Constitutional courts in the country has remained stark and wanting.

In fact, only 11 women have ever occupied the bench of the Supreme Court. Currently, only one women graces its bench, Justice BV Nagarathna, who is slated to become the first woman Chief Justice of India.

The last time women judges were appointed to the Supreme Court was in 2021.

Since then, four Chief Justices of India (CJIs) - Justices UU Lalit, DY Chandrachud, Sanjiv Khanna, and BR Gavai have come and gone. For all the speak of the importance of gender representation, no woman was elevated to the apex court during their tenures.

Mohana will be the 12th woman judge in the history of the Supreme Court of India.

Before Mohana, only one woman judge had the distinction of being elevated directly from the bar, Justice Indu Malhotra.

Incidentally, decades ago, Mohana had worked with Justice Malhotra when the latter was also practising as an advocate before the Supreme Court.

Background

A first generation lawyer, Mohana graduated from Coimbatore Law College (now GLC, Coimbatore) in 1988, India’s first batch of the five year law course.

She then joined the chambers of advocate M Panchapakesan where she was the only woman lawyer.

In 1992, Mohana moved to New Delhi and worked with then advocate Indu Malhotra.

After a year, she joined the chambers of Senior Advocate CS Vaidyanathan.

In 1996, Mohana cleared the Supreme Court Advocate-on-Record examination and has since been practising independently in the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court, and various other courts and tribunals in the national capital.

She was designated a Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in 2015.

She has appeared in several significant cases before the apex court, including litigation concerning permanent commission for women officers in the armed forces, senior citizens’ property rights and the Karnataka hijab ban case.

She also moved the Supreme Court as a petitioner assailing the top court's decision to prescribe a cut off date to be allotted a lawyer’s chamber. The condition prescribed was that the concerned Senior Advocate should be regularly practising in the Supreme Court and must have a minimum of fifty appearances each year for any two years between June 1, 2011 and June 30, 2016. Mohana contended that since she was designated Senior Advocate only in April 2015, she would be a victim of the arbitrary cut-off date.

While some other prayers in the petition were dismissed by the Supreme Court, Mohana was able to secure relief with regard to the cut-off date which the court modified as October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2018.

With her elevation to the Supreme Court's Bench, Mohana will have a relatively long tenure of nearly five years and retire in June 2031.