The Supreme Court in Thursday while hearing pleas seeking designation of Senior Advocates in the Supreme Court and High Courts without delay,said that it will consider if its 2017 judgment in Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India-needs to be reviewed.
As per the 2017 judgment a framework was introduced for the designation of Senior Advocates in High Courts.
The verdict in its conclusion had acknowledged that the framework was not comprehensive and will have to be revisited after it has gained experience over the period of time.
A Bench comprising of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice Manoj Misra, and Justice Aravind Kumar noted that there may be different issues in different High Courts, which may arise out of the judgment’s concluding paragraph.
The court said that there may be individual issues in different High Courts and the issues arising out of the judgment alone will be taken up first to see if anything survives as to that aspect.
The court has thus directed the counsel which is appearing for various bar associations for filing synopses on the experiences of various High Courts, and listed the matter for further hearing on February 22.
This as while the Court was hearing a batch of pleas regarding the process of Senior Counsel designations.
One of the pleas that was been heard was an application which was moved by the Supreme Court Advocate-on-Record Association (SCAORA) seeking a directions to the Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates (CDSA) for concluding without delay the process of designating Senior Advocates to the top court from applications that were invited in February 2022.
The application by SCAORA states that pursuant to the 2017 judgment in the case of Indira Jaising, the Supreme Court had framed the Supreme Court Guidelines to Regulate Conferment of Designation of Senior Advocate, 2018.
Taking that into consideration the CDSA was was required to meet at least twice a year. However, the next round of applications was sought only in February 2022, which is yet to be completed, it was pointed out.
The landmark judgment which was dealing with the issue of Senior designations has laid down criteria which are applicable to the Supreme Court and all High Courts.
As per the guidelines, there will be a CDSA for each court while all applications for designation would go to the Permanent Committee comprising the Chief Justice, two senior most judges, the Attorney General/Advocate General and an eminent member of the Bar nominated by the other four members.