Madras High Court issues notice in challenge to minimum age, experience criteria for senior designations

The Madras High Court on Thursday issued notice to its administrative side in a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging the validity of Rules 4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b) of the Madras High Court Designation of Senior Advocates Rules, 2020, which prescribe a minimum age (45 years) and experience criteria for an advocate to be eligible for designation as a Senior Advocate (Rangasamy and ors v. The High Court of Madras)..The petition filed by five lawyers asserted that the challenged provisions run contrary to the Supreme Court's ruling in Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India and the 2018 guidelines issued by the Supreme Court thereafter for designation of Senior Advocates.The petitioners highlighted that it is clear from the Supreme Court judgment and the guidelines that the minimum eligibility requirement should have to do with experience or standing at the Bar, and not age. As per the Supreme Court guidelines, persons with ten years standing at the Bar are eligible to apply for Senior Advocate designation, it was pointed out..The Madras High Court had notified its Senior Designation Rules in July 2020. Shortly after it was notified, however, concerns were raised on certain aspects of the Rules including the minimum age cap of 45 years and the bar on Senior Advocates from seeking adjournments.The Tamil Nadu Advocates' Association and the Bar Council of India had flagged these concerns in representations made last year.In response, the Permanent Committee of the High Court had intimated minor clarifications and changes. On the issue of minimum age limit, however, the Committee had called for an intervention application to be filed in the Supreme Court for clarification. The apex court had also taken up related issues around the same time..Senior Advocate Satish Parasaran appearing before a Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu, submitted today that the Rules under challenge are not in consonance with the directions given by Supreme Court in Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India.The Senior Counsel also adverted to the judgment of the top court in Madras Bar Association vs Union Of India.“The judgment sought to bring some sort of uniformity in the appointment process. The insistence of 50 years for tribunal members came for consideration of the Supreme Court recently. They’ve held that stipulation of age limit may not pass Article 14 test. They’ve held that if otherwise a person is competent, it would be imposing some sort of fetter on consideration of competence,” it was submitted..Chief Justice Banerjee clarified that the Court was trying to reach a solution to the issue presented and the same was discussed at three full Court meetings recently and has been referred to a sub-committee. Further, he informed that the sub-committee had met and was due to submit a report.However, he added that an element of subjectivity is necessary in matters such as appointments and that element could not be done away with.“In matters pertaining to appointments, there is only so much which can be objective. There has to be a subjective element. However, the exercise of this objective element in recent time has been subject to extraneous considerations. Which is not expected of the kind of people who participate in the decision making process.. But because of that you cannot turn the system on its head and remove the entire element of subjectivity,” he said..In response to the concerns raised by the Court, Senior Counsel Parasaran clarified that the assessment and judgment of a person will not be altered at all but he asked why a larger pool should be prevented from applying by prescribing conditions in the teeth of Supreme Court judgment.Consequently, the Bench admitted the matter and agreed to hear it further.