Voluntary endeavours towards promotion of younger colleagues and efforts towards bringing women lawyers together to encourage each other needed, says the informal association of women lawyers during an annual tea event attended by judges of Delhi High Court.
—-
JUSTICE Mukta Gupta, judge at the Delhi High Court, during an annual tea soirée organised by the Delhi High Court Women Lawyers Forum (DHCWLF), spoke on the need to encourage more women lawyers to practise litigation. The event was attended by judges, including Justices Siddharth Mridul and Suresh Kumar Kait of the Delhi High Court, and senior advocates and lawyers of the forum.
The event, held on March 17, was organised to celebrate women in litigation, and highlighted the initiative taken by the forum towards promoting gender equality and diversity in the legal profession.
The forum showcased the activities and work undertaken by it in the past year, such as mentoring programmes, legal aid camps, webinars and workshops, which were highly praised by Justice Gupta.
She appreciated the functioning of the forum with cohesion without a formal hierarchical structure.
Justices Mridul and Kait also addressed the gathering of young lawyers. While Justice Mridul encouraged them to work harder in their profession, Justice Kait pointed out the need to include young lawyers from diverse and marginalised backgrounds and pay them decent stipends to allow them to build a career in litigation.
Later, judges also participated in an informal question-answer session with other judges and lawyers.
Other judges of the Delhi High Court that attended the event included Justices Najmi Waziri, Sanjeev Sachdeva, V. Kameswar Rao, Yashwant Varma, Rekha Palli, Prathiba M. Singh, Navin Chawla, Chandra Dhari Singh, Subramonium Prasad, Jyoti Singh, Prateek Jalan, Anup Jairam Bhambhani, Sanjeev Narula, Manoj Kumar Ohri, Talwant Singh and Jasmeet Singh.
Justices Amit Bansal, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, Neena Bansal Krishna, Dinesh Kumar Sharma, Anoop Kumar Mendiratta, Sudhir Kumar Jain, Poonam A. Bamba, Swarana Kanta Sharma, Tara Vitasta Ganju, Mini Pushkarna, Vikas Mahajan, Tushar Rao Gedela, Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, Sachin Datta, Amit Mahajan, Gaurang Kanth, Saurabh Banerjee, Anish Dayal and Amit Sharma of the Delhi High Court were also present.
The event concluded with a vote of thanks to the judges, and appreciation for the organisers of the event.
About the forum
The DHCWLF is a voluntary forum that started as a virtual canteen around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The need was felt to have an online platform to continue robust interaction and real conversation that the lawyers used to engage in, particularly when they met in the court canteens.
The DHCWLF was established with the objective of empowering women lawyers practising at the Delhi High Court. It does so by providing a platform for networking and collaborating among women lawyers, amongst other things.
Today, the forum has over 250 members from various fields of law, and organises events and activities throughout the year to enhance its members’ professional skills and personal growth.
