On June 5, 2026, Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai took oath as the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court. With that oath, India crossed a threshold its judiciary had never reached: Four women serving simultaneously as permanent Chief Justices of High Courts. Justice Sunita Agarwal at Gujarat, Justice Revati Mohite Dere at Meghalaya, Justice Lisa Gill at Andhra Pradesh, and now Justice Rai at Patna. Four courts. Four women. All permanent appointments. This has not happened in the 75 years since the Constitution came into force.
In 2018, four women headed High Courts at the same time, but one, Justice Nishita Nirmal Mhatre at the Calcutta High Court, was serving in an acting capacity. The distinction matters. An acting Chief Justice holds the chair temporarily, pending a permanent appointment. A permanent Chief Justice is the institution. What makes June 2026 different from 2018 is not arithmetic. It is institutional recognition.
Justice Rai’s journey tells a story that the aggregate data obscures. In December 1990, she joined the Sikkim Judicial Service as a Judicial Magistrate First Class, the first woman from Sikkim to hold the position. She spent the next 25 years rising through the district judiciary in a state with one of the smallest judicial establishments in the country: Chief Judicial Magistrate, District and Sessions Judge, Registrar General of the High Court. In April 2015, she became the first woman from Sikkim to be elevated to the High Court bench. She served as Acting Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court on five separate occasions. On June 5, she assumed charge of the Patna High Court, one of India’s oldest and largest, with jurisdiction over a state of 130 million people.
The appointment is significant beyond the personal milestone. The Supreme Court Collegium under CJI Surya Kant recommended Justice Rai on May 22. The government notified the appointment on June 2. The speed and institutional alignment between the Collegium recommendation and executive notification reflect a systemic intent, not an incidental outcome. Justice Lisa Gill’s appointment to Andhra Pradesh was itself a product of the Collegium’s new succession policy, which transfers prospective Chief Justices to their future courts in advance to allow familiarisation before they assume charge. These are structural reforms in how judicial leadership transitions are managed, not ad hoc decisions.
But the milestone acquires its full weight only when placed against the baseline it emerged from. Only 12 women have served as Chief Justices of High Courts out of 242 total appointments since Independence. That is less than 5%. Across 75 years, 230 Chief Justices were men. India has had 25 High Courts operating continuously since statehood. The country averaged one woman Chief Justice for every six years of its constitutional existence.
The Supreme Court’s own record is not substantially different. Twelve women have served on the apex court bench in 35 years. The court has never had more than four women judges simultaneously, a high-water mark reached briefly in 2021 when Justices Indira Banerjee, Hima Kohli, BV Nagarathna, and Bela Trivedi served together. India has never had a woman Chief Justice of India. Justice Nagarathna is expected to hold the position for 36 days in 2027, if the seniority convention holds.
Government data shows 170 women have been appointed as High Court judges to date. The pace has accelerated in recent years. But appointments alone do not determine representation. The Chief Justice of a High Court controls the roster, constitutes benches, allocates cases, and shapes the institutional culture of the court. Administrative authority, not merely judicial presence, is where representation becomes governance. Four women holding that authority simultaneously is qualitatively different from four women sitting on four different benches.
The question that follows the celebration is whether this moment is a trend or a peak. If it is a trend, the pipeline must produce more women who are appointable to Chief Justice positions, which requires more women on High Court benches, which requires more women entering and surviving legal practice. The attrition rate across that pipeline, from 50% at law school to 15% at the bar to 13% on the bench to 5% as Chief Justices, has been documented extensively.
Four women Chief Justices is not a destination. It is proof that the destination is reachable. The judiciary has demonstrated that the ceiling can break. The question is whether it will stay broken.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Bhavya Razshree, advocate, Delhi Courts and co-founder, LawSarathi.in. and Aditya Ashok, public policy consultant, Government Advisory.
