SC to consider listing of pleas for hearing on conferring senior designation to lawyers

A bench took note of the submissions of Indira Jaising, on whose PIL the apex court had come out with a slew of guidelines

The Supreme Court Monday agreed to consider the listing of petitions questioning some High Courts' decision to confer senior designation to advocates by using "arbitrary and discriminatory" secret voting as a norm.

A bench presided over by Chief Justice N V Ramana took into consideration submissions by senior advocate Indira Jaising, who sought urgent listing of her miscellaneous application.

She alleged that some High Courts continued to use a secret voting process to confer senior designation.

Acting on her PIL, the top court had in 2017 issued a slew of guidelines for designating lawyers as seniors.

"There are some problems about senior designation in various courts…..I want to take this up,” the CJI said.

The bench, also comprising justices Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose, cited the demise of senior advocate Soli Sorabjee, who was one of the members on the apex court’s panel for taking initial decisions on applications of lawyers for grant of senior designation, and added that a new appointment has to be made.

"You know one of our seniors Soli has passed away. We have to find a replacement,” the bench told her.

The court said it would consider the matter after some time while indicating some development might take place in one or two weeks.

Jaising said that the 2017 judgment required to be worked out and the issue has been hanging fire for very long.

Jaising submitted that designation of lawyers should be on the basis of marks given by the designated committee and the voting should be resorted to only when it is unavoidable.

She said that some of the high courts use the voting method as a norm and not an exception.