In a historic first for the higher judiciary, four high courts across the country are set to have female chief justices simultaneously after the Union government on Tuesday notified the appointment of Sikkim High Court judge Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai as the new chief justice of the Patna High Court.
Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal announced the appointment through a post on X. Justice Rai will succeed Justice Sangam Kumar Sahu, who left his post as chief justice of the Patna High Court on June 4.
The notification comes days after the Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, recommended the appointment of Justice Rai on May 22.
With the appointment of Justice Rai, the Indian High Courts will, for the first time, have four female Chief Justices simultaneously. Other women currently heading the high courts are Justice Sunita Agarwal of the Gujarat High Court, Justice Revati Mohit Dhere of the Meghalaya High Court, and Justice Lisa Gill of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. There are 25 supreme courts in the country.
This development represents another milestone in the gradual increase in women’s representation in the senior judiciary, an issue that has repeatedly emerged in discussions among judges, lawyers and parliamentary committees.
The appointment also assumes significance because the Patna High Court, one of the oldest constitutional courts in the country, has historically seen limited representation of women in judicial leadership positions.
According to data placed in Parliament by the Federal Law Ministry earlier this year, 170 women judges have been appointed to various high courts since 2014, including 96 in the last five years alone, while six women were promoted to the Supreme Court during the same period.
The government emphasized that judicial appointments are made based on the recommendations of the Supreme Court Council, and encouraged the higher courts to consider suitable female candidates to enhance diversity on the bench.
This would certainly be the second known case of four women simultaneously presiding over the country’s high courts. In the previous case in 2017, one of the four women was serving only as acting Chief Justice and not as a regularly appointed Chief Justice on the recommendation of the College.
Justice Rai, who has been serving as a judge of the Sikkim High Court since April 2015, is among the senior women judges currently serving in the Constitutional Courts.
Born in July 1964, she is the daughter of former Sikkim Home Minister Madan Mohan Rasili. She joined the Delhi Bar Council in 1990 and practiced before the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court before returning to Sikkim.
She also served as Acting Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court. In a development previously reported by HT, Justice Rai in December 2025 withdrew some post-retirement facilities given to her predecessor, Justice Biswanath Sumadheer, sparking a debate within judicial circles over the conventions governing benefits provided to retired chief justices and administrative suitability issues.
