Women's Day: Indian Supreme Court far more progressive than American in interpreting women’s rights, says lawyer Vibha Makhija

Senior Advocate Vibha Datta Makhija (54) has played a key role in a variety of cases. She has defended reservations for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), been the amicus curiae (friend of the court) to help the Supreme Court (SC) expand the definition of "vulnerable witness" and expanded the ambit of sexual assault to include age and gender-neutral victims.

Makhija, a lawyer with over 30 years of experience, was designated a senior advocate by the Supreme Court in 2013.

True to the definition of a senior advocate in the Advocates Act, Makhija has been a lawyer’s lawyer by guiding many young juniors and appearing in the courts for them.

She confesses that she was not a great student. “I started as a lawyer because I had no other options. However, it was the excitement of ideation and fighting for rights that attracted me to law,’’ she says.

Despite starting her career as a lawyer at a time when not many women looked at law as a viable profession, Makhija says her experience was very good because she had the good fortune of joining the office of the late finance minister Arun Jaitley.

“There was a lot of work, and getting the work done was the focus. There was no time to think of other things. I got excellent training in the legal sciences,” she adds.

Makhija says her personal goal has always been to be a top-class professional in whatever she did. "Everything I did was geared towards achieving the highest recognition one could get in a given field. In litigation, being designated a senior counsel is the highest recognition one can achieve, so I worked towards that,” she explains.

Women in the legal profession

Speaking of how it is to be a lady lawyer in 2023, she notes that the environment today is much better than what it was when she started. Then she adds: “When I joined the bar, the environment was way better than what it was for women, say, a couple of decades earlier.  So, each day the atmosphere improves as awareness improves.

“Women lawyers are conscious of their rights, they are aware of the downsides of the profession. Many women’s groups encourage young women and support them. Women are helping women now, rather than men helping women. That’s a big change,” Makhija says.

Evolution of the laws on women

Speaking of the evolution of the laws on women in India, she says, “Laws regarding  female autonomy have certainly evolved in recent times.  I would definitely credit the  SC with leading that change from the front.” Indeed, Makhija says that some SC judgments have caused society to recognise the concept of female autonomy.

“Some people object to the fact that laws for the protection of women are loaded in favour of women. But that’s required. Because if that were not to be the case, it would be very difficult for women to find any recourse,” she adds.

SC on the medical termination of pregnancy

“The SC judgment upholding the right of an unmarried woman to medically terminate her pregnancy is far more progressive than the judgment of the American SC in Dobb vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which did not recognise a woman’s autonomy. We are in a very good place, we are making good progress,’’ explained the Senior Advocate.