List of female chief justices in India

This is a list of women who have served as chief justices of the high courts of India, arranged in chronological order.

The first woman to be appointed as the chief justice of an Indian high court was Leila Seth, who assumed office at the Himachal Pradesh High Court on 5 August 1991. The Kerala High Court and the Madras High Court have each had the highest number of female chief justices, with three appointments each.

Manjula Chellur served as the chief justice of three different high courts and holds the record for the longest combined tenure among female chief justices, exceeding five years. In contrast, Sonia Gokani had the shortest tenure, serving for just nine days.

To date,^[when?] there have been 18 women chief justices across 14 high courts. At present, one woman serves as a chief justice among the 25 high courts chief justices in India.

List of female chief justices

Key

Incumbent

No.	Name	Date of appointment	Date of retirement	Tenure	High Court	Note
1	Leila Seth	5 August 1991	20 October 1992	1 year, 76 days	Himachal Pradesh High Court	First female chief justice of a high court in India.
2	Kanta Kumari Bhatnagar	15 June 1992	14 November 1992	152 days	Madras High Court	First female chief justice of the Madras High Court.
3	Sujata Manohar	15 January 1994	20 April 1994	95 days	Bombay High Court	First female chief justice of the Bombay High Court and the Kerala High Court. Later elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court of India.
3	Sujata Manohar	21 April 1994	7 November 1994	200 days	Kerala High Court
4	K. K. Usha	25 February 2001	3 July 2001	128 days	Kerala High Court
5	Gyan Sudha Misra	13 July 2008	30 April 2010	1 year, 291 days	Jharkhand High Court	First female chief justice of the Jharkhand High Court. Later elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court of India.
6	Rekha Doshit	21 June 2010	12 December 2014	4 years, 174 days	Patna High Court	First female chief justice of the Patna High Court.
7	Manjula Chellur	26 September 2012	1 August 2014	1 year, 310 days	Kerala High Court	First female chief justice of the Calcutta High Court.
		6 August 2014	21 August 2016	2 years, 15 days	Calcutta High Court
		22 August 2016	4 December 2017	1 year, 104 days	Bombay High Court
8	T. Meena Kumari	23 March 2013	3 August 2013	133 days	Meghalaya High Court	First chief justice of the Meghalaya High Court.
9	R. Banumathi	16 November 2013	12 August 2014	269 days	Jharkhand High Court	Later elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court of India.
10	Gorla Rohini	21 April 2014	13 April 2017	2 years, 357 days	Delhi High Court	First female chief justice of the Delhi High Court.
11	Indira Banerjee	5 April 2017	6 August 2018	1 year, 123 days	Madras High Court	Later elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court of India.
12	Abhilasha Kumari	9 February 2018	22 February 2018	13 days	Manipur High Court	First female chief justice of the Manipur High Court.
13	Gita Mittal	11 August 2018	8 December 2020	2 years, 119 days	Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court	First female chief justice of the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court.
14	Vijaya Tahilramani	12 August 2018	6 September 2019	1 year, 25 days	Madras High Court
15	Hima Kohli	7 January 2021	30 August 2021	235 days	Telangana High Court	First female chief justice of the Telangana High Court. Later elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court of India.
16	Sonia Gokani	16 February 2023	25 February 2023	9 days	Gujarat High Court	First female chief justice of the Gujarat High Court.
17	Sunita Agarwal	23 July 2023	Incumbent	2 years, 148 days	Gujarat High Court
18	Ritu Bahri	4 February 2024	10 October 2024	249 days	Uttarakhand High Court	First female chief justice of the Uttarakhand High Court.

List of female chief justices

See also