The Supreme Court yesterday decided to designate women advocates Vibha Dutta Makhija, Meenakshi Arora and Kiran Suri as senior advocates by a unanimous decision of a full court, reported the Times of India. Advocate Sushil Jain was also designated a senior in the same meeting.

This is the first time in SC history that a list of designated seniors has male lawyers in the minority. The full court rejected the Supreme Court Bar Association's (SCBA) request to defer consideration of names for the senior designation.

Makhija and Arora are part of the seven-member Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee that was recently set up by the SC.

At least five Supreme Court judges have to now agree to the candidature of an advocate to be designated as a senior by the court, reportedly under new rules.

The Delhi high court had in March designated five new seniors including two women, as reported by Legally India.

Correction: An earlier version of this story had wrongly mentioned that not Kiran Suri but Sushma Suri had been designated as a senior, relying on an erroneous Times of India report we linked to. This has been corrected after the Supreme Court released the full list of senior designated in September, online.