Justice M Fathima Beevi
Justice M. Fathima Beevi was the first female judge to be appointed to the Supreme Court of India (1989).
and the first Muslim woman to be appointed to any higher judiciary. On her retirement from the court she served as a member of the National Human Rights Commission and as Governor in Tamil Nadu (1997–2001).
Fathima Beevi was born on 30 April 1927 at Pathanamthitta, Travancore .
She did her schooling in Catholicate High School, Pathanamthitta and got her B.Sc. from University College, Trivandrum. She obtained her B.L. from Government Law College, Thiruvananthapuram.
She was enrolled as Advocate on 14 November 1950. She began her career in the lower judiciary in Kerala. She was appointed as the Munsiff in the Kerala Sub-ordinate Judicial Services in May, 1958. She was promoted as the Sub-ordinate Judge in 1968 and as the Chief Judicial Magistrate in 1972, as District & Sessions Judge in 1974.
Justice Sujata V Manohar
Ms. Manohar was born into a family with a strong legal background – her father would later become the second Chief Justice of the High Court of Gujarat. She graduated from Elphinstone College, Bombay, and then went to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford where she read Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
She was appointed a judge of the Bombay high court in 1978 — the first woman judge of that court.
In January 1994, she became the chief justice of the Bombay high court — the first woman to hold that post.
In April 1994, she became the chief justice of the Kerala high court — the first woman to hold that post.
In November 1994, she was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court, where she left behind a legacy of a strong independent stance.
Justice Ruma Pal
- Justice Pal had begun her practice in 1968 in the Calcutta high court with civil, revenue, labour and Constitutional matters. She went on to become a judge in the Calcutta high court in 1990.
- She was appointed to the Supreme Court in January 2000 and served till June 2006, becoming the longest-serving woman judge.
Justice Gyan Sudha Misra
- Justice Gyan Sudha Misra started her career in Bihar in the 1970s, winning new battles in the male-dominated profession every step of the way. Just like her predecessors.
- After a career of 21 years as a lawyer she was appointed a judge of the Patna high court in 1994.
- She then served as a judge of the Rajasthan high court even as she served in several other judicial roles in the state.
- In 2008, Justice Misra was appointed chief justice of the Jharkhand high court, paving the way for her appointment as a Supreme Court judge in April 2010.
- Among her notable judgments were the Srinivasan-BCCI matter the Aruna Shanbaug case and the Uphaar tragedy ruling.
Justice Ranjana Prakash
- Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai was appointed in September 2011. Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai entered the legal profession in the early 1970s.
- Justice Desai, the daughter of an eminent criminal lawyer, also leaned towards working on criminal matters before she was appointed as a government pleader in 1979.
- She went on to become a special public prosecutor for preventive detention matters in 1986 and government pleader on the appellate side in the Bombay high court in 1995.
- She was elevated to the Bombay high court bench in 1996, where her most notable case was the one against 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab. She upheld the death sentence awarded to Kasab.
- She served at the Bombay high court till her appointment to the Supreme Court.
Justice R Banumathi
Justice R Banumathi (born 20 July 1955) is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. She had served as the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court and judge at Madras High Court.
Banumathi had joined Tamil Nadu Higher Judicial Service in 1988 as a direct recruit district judge.
Her road to the Supreme Court was paved with her experiences as a direct recruit district judge in Tamil Nadu, a sessions judge, a Madras high court judge (where she dealt with the landmark cases related to banning of jallikattu), and the chief justice of the Jharkhand high court.
She will retire in July 2020.