Kerala High Court's women judges set the example the Supreme Court followed, Chief Justice of India says at the platinum jubilee

1 November 2026

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant opened the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Kerala High Court at Kochi, seventy years after the Court came into being. He said the pioneering women judges who began at this Court, Justice Anna Chandy and Justice Fathima Beevi, had shaped the thinking of the collegium and the Supreme Court on women in the higher judiciary. He credited that example with his own push to get the Bar Council of India, the State Bar Councils and Bar Associations to reserve 30% representation for women members of the Bar. He also urged steps to build up trust in the High Courts as the first and natural forum for constitutional relief, with listing made clearer and easier to predict. A litigant's access to timely justice must not depend on the ability to travel to the national capital, he said. Kerala High Court Chief Justice Soumen Sen presided, and the guests of honour were Supreme Court judge S.V.N. Bhatti and the Union Minister of State holding Law and Justice, Arjun Ram Meghwal. P. Balakrishna Menon, who at the age of 100 holds the Guinness world record for the longest career as a practising lawyer, was honoured with life membership of the Kerala High Court Advocates Association. The Chief Justice of India also released a documentary on two hundred years of the State's judicial history.