Will the system of Senior designations be revisited? Supreme Court reserves verdict

The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict in petitions calling for a relook at the guidelines for designation of lawyers as Senior Advocates, as laid out in its 2017 judgment in Indira Jaising. (Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India).While reserving its verdict, a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Aravind Kumar, and Ahsanuddin Amanullah today reiterated that some amount of discretion needs to be left with the full courts of High Courts and the Supreme Court while finalising the names..Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for the Central government, argued that guidelines should only be based on any one of the criterion as per Section 16 of the Advocates Act. This provision prescribes that designations be conferred on the basis of experience, or standing at the Bar, or special knowledge.To this Justice Kaul remarked,"It was never laid down [by the Union government] earlier that any guidelines would not be proper. No review was filed by the Union. This is a limited exercise based on that one para in the judgment, whether it needs revisiting.. If you wanted such changes you should have filed a review within the stipulated time.".In its 2017 decision in Indira Jaising, the top court had laid down criteria for Senior designations, applicable to all courts.As per the guidelines, there would be a CDSA (Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates) for each court. 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.The Bench had noted on February 16 that there may be different issues in different High Courts, before adding that the issues arising out of the judgment's concluding paragraph would be taken up first.The paragraph in question leaves it open for the exisiting mechanism to be 'revisited' based on experience.Yesterday, the Court had discussed the demerits of giving weightage to interviews and publications..Senior Advocate and Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh, appearing for the SCBA, argued today that the full court vote should be done away with, as some names suggested by the CDSA tend to get rejected at that stage.Singh added that to determine domain expertise, outside experts may need to be made part of the committee. He also flagged the lack of clarity surrounding names that are initially passed over."There is no consistency or clarity whether those deferred have to or can apply again."Singh suggested that the exercise may be done twice a year to clear the exisiting backlog of pending names.On a lighter note, Justice Kaul in response remarked that the delay has meant that a lot of over-ambitious counsel ended up applying for Senior designations at the top court. The Supreme Court tends to designate seniors at a slightly later age than High Courts, he pointed out..Senior Advocate Aman Lekhi, appearing for the Supreme Court Advocates-On-Record Association (SCAORA), said that High Courts should not be allowed to add names to the list initially circulated by the CDSA.On this point, the Bench opined that in that case, High Courts may only effectively be left with a veto power."Otherwise full court only becomes an elimination process. We can say views of Committee will be expected to be respected by the full court, but it may be that there are reservations for certain names. I also feel there cannot be wholesale change," Justice Kaul said.Justice Amanullah weighed in, saying,"It may be a positive balance as per law in the sense it is the full court cancelling names not the committee."Lekhi argued that it was overall knowledge of the law rather than domain expertise that made Senior Counsel stand out. He added that marks should be given for synopses drafted..Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Madhavi Divan, appearing for the top court's Secretary General, said,"This deferred [names] is becoming a vicious cycle...Because next time around. you have hundreds of names...Whether this judgment will be prospective or retrospective - that is a logistical concern as far as we are concerned.".ASG Nataraj argued that the 2017 judgment went against the legislative policy laid out in Section 16 of the Advocates Act.Justice Kaul responded,"It is not dilution of legislative policy but only self-restriction on part of Court. Point is to have a holistic examination. We are not diluting any of the legislative policies."Senior Advocate and petitioner in-person Indira Jaising objected to the Central government's submissions that she argued were in the nature of a review. She said the Court should first rule on whether they have locus to be heard in the case.Pertinently, Jaising said that the government should put on record evidence, if any, of allegations of counsel campaigning before judges to be designated.Justice Amanullah on this said, "The bar and the bench should be upfront if there is any lobbying."Senior Advocate and Bar Council of India (BCI) Chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra said that the BCI should have some representation in the CDSA, and mere orders should not be counted as part of reported judgments..Read more about the applications in the matter by SCAORA, the SCBA and the Central government, here.