The Supreme Court today left the issue of designating lawyers as seniors to the discretion of the apex court and the high courts, and referred to a larger bench the pleas seeking framing of guidelines on the issue.
Noting that the issue of designating lawyers as seniors was of "utmost importance", the bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha asked the secretary general of the apex court to place its order and case files before Chief Justice J S Khehar today itself for consideration and setting up a larger bench to deal with it.
The bench, meanwhile, considered the argument that there should not be a ban on designating lawyers as seniors by the apex court and the high courts across the country.
It was argued that some of the high courts, while keeping in mind the penedency of the petition before the apex court, were not dealing with applications of lawyers seeking to be designated as senior advocates.
"So far as designating lawyers as seniors is concerned, we leave it to the discretion of the full court of the Supreme Court and the high courts," the bench said in its order.
Referring to a larger bench the batch of petitions, including the one filed by senior advocate Indira Jaising, the apex court said the instant issue has "ramifications" for all High Court Bar Associations and hence needed to be dealt with by a bigger bench.
At the outset, Jaising said the apex court should deal with the matter on the "judicial side" and frame uniform guidelines for designating senior lawyers.
She also sought a ban for the time being on designating lawyers as seniors till the apex court decides the case. The plea, however, was opposed by Bar leaders like Ajit Kumar Sinha and Gaurav Bhatia.
Jaising has sought transparency and overhaul of the "opaque system" of designating lawyers as senior advocates.
Earlier, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had said that due to the pending petition, the process of designating lawyers as seniors had stopped in various high courts. He said no senior lawyer has been designated for the past one-and-a-half years. The process of designating retired high court judges as senior lawyers to enable them practise in the Supreme Court has also been stuck, he said.
On January 2, the apex court had decided to hear afresh
the plea of Jaising on the issue.
The court had also tagged with it a petition pending in the Delhi High Court which challenged the provisions of the Advocates Act relating to designation of lawyers as seniors.
The petition pending in the high court challenges the constitutional validity of sections 16 and 23 (5) of the Advocates Act, 1961 which provide the statutory basis for designation of lawyers as senior advocates.
The court had noted in its order that after it had reserved the judgement, an application was filed seeking recall of its October 21 last year order on two grounds, including that when the matter was taken up for hearing on that date, the bench did not fully hear submissions on behalf of various lawyers.
The second ground was regarding the petition pending before the high court challenging the constitutional validity of the provisions of the Advocates Act.
Jaising, in her plea, has said that the "monopoly" at the Bar of a handful of seniors was affecting access to justice and sought a system which provided "equal opportunity" to all. She equated it with the concept of monopolistic and restrictive trade practices.
Terming the present process as "opaque, arbitrary and fraught with nepotism", she had alleged the system was discriminatory and "if we want this (the practice of designating seniors) to continue, it has to be democratised".
Earlier, the apex court had said it was open to suggestions from the Bar to improve the system, but the final decision would remain with the judges.
She claimed that advocates taking up matters of human rights or public interest litigations were ignored and there was a need to analyse data relating to the cases argued, judgements delivered in their matters besides their contribution to jurisprudence and legal aid programmes.
