Delhi High Court Senior Designations case: What Sudhir Nandrajog told Supreme Court

Senior Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog, who had resigned from the Delhi High Court permanent committee in charge of designating lawyers as Senior Advocates, has told the Supreme Court that the final list of designated seniors was sent to him after the full court had already approved it..In an affidavit filed before the top court, Nandrajog said that the full court of the High Court approved the names "without holding any meeting with the permanent committee."Nandrajog further informed the top court that he did not append his signatures to the said list, since the same had been prepared without holding any meeting of the permanent committee. Further since the said list had already been placed before the full court, it would have been improper for him to have made any comments on the list of names after its consideration by the full court."On 29.11.2024 at around 4.45 p.m. two officials from the High Court of Delhi, came to the residence cum office of the deponent at A-16, Sector 14, Noida with a list of names, which according to them had to be placed before the Full Court of the High Court of Delhi for consideration for designation as Senior Advocates. The deponent was requested to append his signatures to the said list. On inquiry by the deponent as to when the meeting of the Full Court was proposed to be held, he was informed that the meeting had already taken place in the afternoon of 29.11.2024 from 3.00 p.m. onwards. The said list of names had already been placed for consideration by the Full Court and had been duly considered by it," the affidavit said..The affidavit by Nandrajog was filed in the plea by Advocate Raman Gandhi seeking the quashing of a recent decision by the full court of the Delhi High Court to confer senior designation on 70 lawyers. The High Court had interviewed 302 lawyers for the same.However, the decision became mired in controversy after Nandrajog, one of the members of the permanent committee, resigned over claims that the final list was prepared without his consent.The permanent committee is a body which shortlists the candidates to be designated. This list is then sent to the full court, which takes the final call.The permanent committee of the Delhi High Court includes Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya, Justice Vibhu Bakhru, Justice Yashwant Varma, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, and Senior Advocates Mohit Mathur and Nandrajog.On February 17, the Supreme Court had issued notice on the plea by Gandhi challenging the designations and sought the response of the Delhi High Court's Registrar General, who was also ordered to submit a copy of the senior designation committee's report in a sealed cover.Notably, the Court had also sought the response of Nandrajog, who had stepped down from the permanent committee. Pursuant to that, Nandrajog filed his response in a sealed cover..On his resignation, Nandrajog stated in his affidavit that since he had been excluded from the process of consultation and finalisation of marks awarded to the various candidates, he did not deem it fit to continue as a member of the permanent committee.Nandrajog further stated that the then Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court on November 25, 2024 had circulated a draft award sheet containing the marks given to different candidates. .It was further added that the Chief Justice had clarified that members could circulate their own draft award sheet. The next meeting date was kept as tentatively on December 2, 2024, so that the members could circulate their own draft award sheets and the matter could be taken forward. However, according to Nandrajog, no such meeting of the permanent committee was held and no notice or agenda of any meeting was ever received by him.In the absence of any such meeting being held for the finalisation of marks to be awarded to the applicant advocates, all members could not give their inputs, his affidavit stated..When the matter was heard today, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan observed that the Delhi High Court appeared to have rejected eligible candidates while recently conferring senior designation on 70 lawyers.The Court asked the High Court Registrar General to seek instructions in the matter.It also sought a response from the High Court on whether it would be possible to consider granting the senior gown to the candidates who appear to be eligible, but were not designated."Otherwise, we will have to go into this. We have an affidavit (from a lawyer who was a member of the Senior Advocate Designation Committee) which indicates the manner in which the process was conducted," Justice Oka cautioned the High Court.The Court also directed that copies of Nandrajog's affidavit be shared with the counsel representing the High Court's Registrar.The matter will be considered again on April 4.