SC to examine if 2017 verdict laying down guidelines for senior advocate designation needs revisit

New Delhi, Feb 16 (PTI) The Supreme Court said on Thursday it will consider whether its 2017 verdict laying down the guidelines for itself and high courts to govern the exercise of designating lawyers as senior advocates needs to be revisited.

“The scope really is whether the judgement needs some modifications or not,” a bench headed by Justice S K Kaul said while hearing a batch of pleas raising issues about designating lawyers as senior advocates.

“Let us confine it to whether that judgement needs revisit and if yes, to what extent,” said the bench, which also comprised Justices Manoj Misra and Aravind Kumar.

The apex court was told that the October 2017 verdict had noted that guidelines enumerated in it “may not be exhaustive of the matter and may require reconsideration by suitable additions/deletions in the light of the experience to be gained over a period of time”.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told the bench that the government will be filing an application during the day in the matter.

Referring to one of the paragraphs of the verdict which had said the guidelines may not be exhaustive and may require reconsideration in light of the experiences gained, Mehta said, “We have the experiences based upon which we are moving an application”.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising, on whose petition the 2017 verdict was delivered, told the bench that every high court is adopting a different procedure and it is her submission that there should be some uniformity in the process.

The lawyers appearing in the matter referred to the process adopted by some high courts on designating lawyers as senior advocates.

“We cannot have supervisory jurisdiction over the high courts,” the bench observed, adding, “You say this is the concern of the bar. All of us have been part of the bar”.

“Counsel across the board have expressed their request that the issue of revisiting the judgment on any aspect, if any, be examined by this court on a priority,” the bench said while posting the matter for hearing on February 22.

The bench noted in its order that there are individual petitions which deal with issues which may have arisen in different high courts.

“In order to maintain a proper procedure for hearing, it is agreed that at the inception, the issue arising from the judgment in question alone will be dealt with and dependent on the view taken by this court thereafter, some matters may or may not survive,” it said.

“We thus make it clear that we are at this stage only addressing the issue arising from the judgment which gave liberty to revisit on the basis of experience so far,” the bench said.

It also noted that the solicitor general has submitted that he will be filing an application during the course of the day “setting out the experience so far”.

“We request all the concerned counsel to make sure that in the form of synopsis whatever they want to say qua the experience so far be submitted so that we can proceed with the hearing keeping in mind the contours of what we have set out hereinabove,” the bench said.

In May last year, the top court had modified one of its earlier directions and said the lawyers be allocated one mark each for a year of practice from 10 to 20 years while being considered for designation as senior advocates.

In 2017, the top court had laid down guidelines for itself and the high courts to govern the exercise of designating lawyers as seniors.

One of the guidelines provided that advocates, whose practice years are between 10 and 20 years, will be awarded 10 marks each for their experience as lawyers while being considered for designation as seniors.

Earlier, the apex court had agreed to consider pleas seeking to declare the process adopted by some high courts to confer the ‘senior’ designation to advocates through the process of secret voting of the full court as “arbitrary and discriminatory”.

The 2017 verdict, which had come out with a slew of guidelines for designating lawyers as seniors, had said “all matters relating to the designation of senior advocates in the Supreme Court and all the high courts of the country shall be dealt with by a permanent committee to be known as ‘Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates’.”

The panel will be headed by the CJI and consist of two senior-most judges of the apex court or “high court(s), as may be,” and the Attorney General or the Advocate General of a state in case of a high court will be its member, it had said.

On giving the Bar representation, it had said “The four Members of the Permanent Committee will nominate another Member of the Bar to be the fifth member of the Permanent Committee”.