Locating Paradoxes in the Indian Supreme Court’s Rendition of Gender Justice – An ‘Opportunity Creation’ Analysis Post the Charu Khurana Judgment

Abstract

The Supreme Court of India in Charu Khurana v. Union of India (2015) 1 SCC 192. shattered a 100-year-old glass ceiling which prevented women from participating as make-up artists in the Bombay film industry. The judgment is posited under Cornell University’s Women and Justice section. However, no real socio-economic analysis of the judgment has taken place. The judgment has been criticised as being an exercise in ‘end without means’. While these criticisms are called for, does the judgment represent a classic liberal paradox which ends up doing more harm than good for the people it wishes to liberate? While Charu Khurana has gone ahead to prepare the likes of Shah Rukh Khan the residual impact of her upliftment, at least normatively, has not been analysed in depth. This paper aims to explain the impact of the much-hailed decision of the Supreme Court by deploying paradoxes of liberty, labour economics and scholarship on barriers to entry for women in the market. It challenges the basic presumption that seemingly beneficial legislation that prima facie uplifts the status of women should always render progressive outcomes for all women. “How many more women there are who silently cherish similar aspirations, no one can possibly know; but there are abundant tokens how many would cherish them, were they not strenuously taught to repress them as contrary to the properties of their sex.” ~ John Stuart Mill (On The Subjection Of Women)