Supreme Court lawyers' bodies seek uniform guidelines on marking presence

New Delhi: Supreme Court lawyers bodies have approached the former seeking a direction to its own administration regarding uniform guidelines to allow all advocates present and appearing in a particular case to mark their appearance.

The SC Bar Association and SC Advocate on Record Association were aggrieved with a direction issued by a bench led by Justice Bela M Trivedi on September 20, 2024 in a case of ‘Bhagwan Singh Vs State of UP & Ors'.

The court had then directed that Advocates on Record may mark the appearances of only those lawyers who are authorised to appear and argue the case on a particular date of hearing.

It had then also ordered a CBI inquiry into a case after a man denied filing a petition in connection with a rape and kidnapping case quashed by the Allahabad High Court against a key witness in the infamous 2002 Nitish Katara murder.

In their joint plea, the lawyers bodies said, "This practice direction is contrary to the settled practice of this court and is in overreach of the directions issued on the administrative side of this court from time to time."

The petitioners' association stated that the role of an advocate is not limited to making submissions, more so when she is appearing before the highest constitutional court of the land, and may extend to research of relevant case laws, secure appropriate instructions from the client, preparing the brief for the senior advocate, making written submissions for the court, drafting the pleadings, filing of the case before the court and much more which goes before a case could be heard and adjudicated by this court.

"A narrower interpretation of “appearance” to mean only to make submission before the court will be a discredit to the various functions performed by an advocate," it said.

They also said not recording of the appearances of junior advocates will not only deprive them of the benefit of voting rights in association elections as well as chamber allocation, but also affect their chances of being designated as a Senior Advocate by this court.

"The change of administrative practices by way of judicial orders should be discouraged as same only creates inconsistencies. General practice and procedure of this court should not vary from one bench to another for smooth function of this court and realising its objective of administration of justice," their plea said.

The petition was drawn by President of SCAORA Vipin Nair, SCBA secretary Vikrant Yadav, and office bearers Amit Sharma and Nikhil Jain.

The plea was settled by SCBA president Kapil Sibal, and senior advocates Atmaram Nadkarni, Rachana Srivastava and Gagam Gupta.