AG KK Venugopal Seeks Better Caution During Senior Designation, Jaising Says It Must Be For Improving Quality Of Administration Of Justice

"The designation carries with it a public perception that a particular lawyer is competent and can be handed over a case with full confidence. And that he is much better than a non-senior. Because of this presumption court should be circumspect while awarding seniority" AG K K  Venugopal who is assisting the court.

"It is not that you are doing individual favour to a person..it is all in the interest of improving the quality of administration of Justice", Indira Jaising while seeking proper rules for senior designation.

The final hearing in the "senior designations" matter began on an interesting note in the Supreme Court with Petitioner Senior Advocate and former ASG Indira Jaising while discussing the "discrimination" faced by other lawyers on this account also said "seniors get a more patient hearing too from the judges and this was wrong"

Justice Rohinton Nariman who is part of the three -Judge Bench retorted: "in some courts the opposite operates".

Jaising asked the judges to order that any lawyer found lobbying for senior designation should be disqualified.

Once again calling for clear rules apart from mere norms which exist now for designation as senior, Jaising told the bench headed by Justice Ranjan  Gogoi: " it is not that you are doing individual favour to a person..but it is in the interest of improving the quality of administration of Justice."

Jaising while reading out the affidavit by the registrar of SC said at present the criteria was standing at the Bar, knowledge of law, etc but admits there are no rules but only norms like consideration by a full court".

She said in Commonwealth countries there is a system which includes interview. "There should be assessment based on objective and subjective material. They have to be a combination of it" she said.

Jaising said the Bar Council of India rules do not discriminate and does not distinguish "..there is no senior or non-senior lawyer".

In Nigeria they go to chamber and look at the library also checks how many junior he has., She said.

She said the British Competition Commission brought out a report saying grant of senior designation thoughtlessly promotes monopoly in profession.

BE CAUTIOUS WHILE GRANTING SENIOR DESIGNATION : AG

Attorney General K K Venugopal who was asked by the Bench to assist in the matter said Advocates Act recognised two classes of Advocates.

"Whether it is an honour or not is a matter of assumption and presumption. But after the senior designation it is a fact that lawyers get more briefs. The designation carries with it a public perception that a particular lawyer is competent and can be handed over a case with full confidence. And that he is much better than a non-senior", said the AG.

"Because of this presumption court should be circumspect while awarding seniority" said Venugopal.

Court should not be liberal in granting seniorship but fix a limit for each court and there should be a fixed number every year, the AG said.
The court will continue hearing on August 29.

SC had virtually put on hold the process of designation of lawyers pending Jaising’s petition though no orders were issued.

Supreme Court Bar Association recently urged Chief Justice J S Khehar to allow designations to continue. CJI then assured he will discuss it with Justice Ranjan Gogoi if the court can resume the process.

On March 22, the Bench headed by Justice Gogoi while referring the PIL, filed by Jaising, to a larger bench refused to pass any judicial order granting stay on designation of senior lawyers.

The Bench had left it to the discretion of high courts and Supreme Court to designate seniors.

In the application, she said “so far as Supreme Court is concerned, considering that there are no rules, it is just necessary that pending the hearing and final disposal of this petition, the status quo should be maintained and no designations should be made.

“If designations are made, the very purpose of the present petition would be negated in the light of the observations made in order on January 2, 2017,” she stated in her application.

She alleged that the present system was discriminatory and if we want this to continue with the present system, it has to be democratized.

Earlier her suggestions that a lawyer with 20-30 years of experience or those who filed PILs and had published articles in prominent periodicals should be automatically be designated as seniors, did not appeal to the bench.

The bench was also not impressed with her suggestion that there should be interviews for nominating a counsel as senior on the ground that the process did not involve selection as the judges always interacted with them during hearing.