The Supreme Court division bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Ahsanuddin Amanullah on Monday observed that the petition seeking to challenge the senior advocate designation process  should be placed before a three judge bench as the the decision in the case India Jaising v. Supreme Court of India was also decided by a three judge bench.

The bench remarked that-

“What the petitioner seeks to do is to assail the view adopted in Indira Jaising case and the issue whether there can be a senior advocate category at all or not, be referred to a larger bench since already there is a three judges bench decision on this aspect. We are today in the composition of two judges and therefore this matter has to be placed before a three judges bench to take a call if the matter has to be addressed by a larger bench.”

Background:

Guidelines regarding the designation process of senior advocates practicing before the apex court and the high courts were set out in 2017 judgement Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India. The applications for the said designations are currently pending since February 2022 and accordingly Supreme Court Advocate On Record Association ( SCAORA) has also filed an application to expedite the process.

Application Filed By The Centre:

An application has been filed by the Central Government which asked for the previous method of designation to be reinstated. The government has put forth the early system of evaluating the performances by full courts which were followed by a secret ballot as the current system has led to teh dilution of dignity in the process. 

Application Filed By SCBA:

After the application was filed by the centre, SCBA also filed an application against the centre’s application saying that weightage should not be given to interviews and the publication of the advocates seeking the senior designation. They sought that a permissive approach should be kept while deciding on the applications of advocates who have an experience of over 30 years at the high judiciary.They also emphasized that only constitutional courts are equipped with handling the process.

Suggestions put forth by Jaising:

Senior Advocate Indira Jaising submitted that a voting system should be present in the designation process but it should not be a secret ballot. She also put forth that the system of marking as well as secret ballot are in contrast to each other.

She also submitted that the gowns worn by the senior advocates are distinct to those worn by advocates and hence this should be done away. She cited that symbols matter in people’s psyche and senior and junior serve a purpose but the gown does not serve a purpose. She further said that she has not been wearing the senior gown since two years as she does not want to be a hypocrite. 

Jaising said that the weightage is given to publications done by the advocates but in terms of quantity rather than quality. She also said that there should be more diversity of gender, caste, sexuality etc.

Another flaw that she pointed out was the weightage given to years of experience. The points are given on how many years of experience an aspiring advocate has but the maximum points are 20 which should be increased to 30.

Observations of SC bench in the previous hearing:

The bench said the secret ballot is very limited as firstly the full house tries to take the decision, failing which discussions are held in an elaborate manner. Only if the discussions are not fruitful, a secret ballot is conducted for a very limited purpose. With regards to conducting interviews of the aspiring candidates for the designation teh bench observed that there are a large number of aspirants and conducting an interview would be a very long process spanning through several months.

CASE:MATHEWS J. NEDUMPARA AND ORS. V. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

WP (C)  NO. 320/2023