The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on the process of conferring senior designations to advocates, a contentious issue brought to the fore by senior advocate Indira Jaising. During the hearing, Jaising contested the implementation of interviews as part of the designation process, which she claimed was never part of her original proposal.
The case, heard by a special three-judge bench consisting of Justices Abhay S Oka, Ujjal Bhuyan, and S V N Bhatti, also featured arguments from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and several other lawyers. The bench is revisiting the Supreme Court’s 2017 judgment that established a guideline for the senior designation of lawyers, including an interview process that Jaising now disputes.
Jaising clarified her position in court, stating, “I had not suggested an interview at all. Then when the judgment was delivered I heard the learned judge reading it out and saying that 25 marks will be here for the interview. I never suggested 25 marks. It is quite large. I leave it to the court to decide what to do with 25 marks…”
The senior advocate also highlighted the differences in designation procedures globally and stressed that the decision to employ a secret voting system should rest with the full court rather than being adjudicated judicially. She argued that the designation of senior advocates should not mirror an electoral process.
Conversely, Solicitor General Mehta emphasized the need to adapt the designation process to Indian specifics, moving away from practices prevalent in other countries. He advocated for a reconsideration of the 2017 guidelines, suggesting that designations should be exclusively managed by the court in which an advocate practices, and recommended against any system where individual judges advocate for specific lawyers.
Mehta also proposed that decisions on senior designations be made collectively by either the Supreme Court or the high courts and stressed the importance of basing such decisions on observable courtroom performance, akin to assessing a cricketer’s performance on the field. He supported the idea of a secret ballot to prevent manipulation and lobbying within the legal community.
This series of hearings and debates stems from two significant judgments regarding the senior advocate designation process, with the first delivered by a three-judge bench headed by former Justice Ranjan Gogoi on October 12, 2017. That ruling led to the establishment of a permanent committee, spearheaded by the Chief Justice of India, to manage the senior designations.
