Senior Designation Transforms How Advocates Argue, It Allows Platform For Others To Excel: CJI DY Chandrachud

Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud spoke at the first international conference of the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association on how the designation of senior counsel has a broader purpose and the idea is to bring a certain degree of accumulated understanding of law and society by virtue of experience.

He added that when the purpose of the designation is that the members of the Bar prospers, senior counsels should not be confronted with a barrier that only certain closed groups of people are designated. 

CJI averred: "The effort in designating a senior has been to allow the Bar to understand that the Supreme Court Bar, when it wants to aspire for improvement, advancement and change, should not be confronted with a barrier that the designation only comes to a certain closed group of people."

Defending the recent August 2024 decision to designate 39 advocates as senior counsel based on the 2023 modified guidelines laid down in Indira Jaising vs Supreme Court (2017), CJI addressed that it is bound to be subjected to some criticism. 

CJI said: "Someone told me the other day "you know some of the senior counsels designated are still to gather work"."

Stating that this in itself is not the sole criteria for designation, CJI added: "But I said, the purpose of the board designation of senior counsel was different. The idea of designating is to convey the impression that in "designating seniors we are creating a platform for others to excel"."

"I have seen personally, how lawyers who are AoR just a month ago, when they are given a small brief as senior counsel, there is complete transformation in how they argue in the court. They are also in great awe and responsibility that they are been designated as senior counsel by the Supreme Court," CJI told the audience.

CJI added that of course, the minimum threshold is that they must have done must basic level of work, in fact, more than a basic level of work, but the designation of senior advocate creates a platform where we allow Bar to prosper. 

He noted that not everybody who becomes a part of the system excels. CJI said: "Not all of them will obviously do brilliant at the Bar 10 years or 15 years down the line, but it is the same as appointing judges..Not every judge who is appointed to the District Judiciary or the HCs, achieve the same level of excellence."

Judges deeply cognisant of real-life stories of Bar 

CJI concluded by saying that the process of designation of senior advocates requires the judges to interview the applicants. He added that instead of interview, applicants were asked to share their life stories.

CJI said: "We gave them 5 mins, somebody took 7 mins. Everyone gave us their life stories. First round, we began at 3pm and ended at 10 pm. They gave us moving stories, how they began careers in small districts, came to Delhi in search of work not knowing a senior or what Supreme Court practice was."

He averred that these are real-life stories of members of the Bar and judges are deeply cognizant of that.

Adding to this, CJI said that one of the applicants for the designation of senior advocate told us that she came to Delhi to become a lawyer when her father told her there was no place for her to practice in Gorakhpur. 

Addressing the larger question of the barriers faced by women, CJI stated that he is often asked why there are very few women judges in the Supreme Court.

He said: " I say there are few women judges in Supreme Court today because it reflects the demographic of the Bar 20 years back because you have to take the talent present at avail point of time. If we have to change the demographics of Supreme Court into more inclusive, broad-based and diverse bench, we have to take decision today. It will be taken by each individual member of Bar..."