LCIA Pledges To Have More Women Arbitrators: Advocate Geeta Luthra

According to the statistics, the crime rate against women in India has increased to 7 per cent in last 10 years. The sexual and domestic violence has increased to 15 per cent. In this backdrop, some of the country's top women lawyers came together at the BW Global Legal Summit and Awards 2019, organized by BW to discuss the progression of women in legal profession. Among the panelists were, Advocate Geeta Luthra, Senior Advocate and Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand. The session was moderated by Debolina Partap, Genral Councel, Wockharft.

Talking about the acceptance of women lawyers in the society, Advocate Geeta Luthra said, “The London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) has recently held meetings all over the world, even in India, and pledged to have more women arbitrators.”

Participating in the discussion Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand said, “During 80s, women did not take up law as a purpose to join as a profession. Post 90s with the corporate trend within the field of law, we found that women did start moving towards law as a profession. Today, it’s a different world, women do take on practice full time.”

“The reason why it takes a little more trouble for women is because of choice issues, men will work whereas women will think about working. But times have changed, we have women in every field,” she added.

The friends-cum-colleague duo further shared their journey of reaching heights with challenges and opportunities in the field of law.

Furthermore the panelists discussed the implementation of the statutes and enactments by the government and how they can be more pro-actively be complied by the society and corporate sector. “The government is being extremely pro-active and it has been an entire movement into development of laws. Laws by themselves are never sufficient but laws manifest the intention of society to go in a particular fashion and go towards a particular route,” said Anand. 

Talking about the sexual harassment law, if are being used in the right perspective by women or is misused, Luthra said, “The section 375 and 376 should be further categorized into two, those which are consensual but are based on false promise of marriage and other horrible rapes. There has to be distinction because the definition of rape has become all inclusive.” 

“Every law will be used and misused. We, as lawyers, have to be impartial, unbiased and go according to principal of fairness and natural justice,” she added.