'We Are Discontinuing This Practice': Supreme Court Says Won't Record Appearances Of Advocates Who Didn't Argue/Appear
The Supreme Court recently refused to mark the presence of an advocate in the order saying that she did not argue/appear though the Senior Advocate who argued the matter was engaged by her.The counsel, a young woman, tried to reason why she wanted her appearance to be marked before a bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma. She said: "I engaged a senior advocate. It's a...
The Supreme Court recently refused to mark the presence of an advocate in the order saying that she did not argue/appear though the Senior Advocate who argued the matter was engaged by her.
The counsel, a young woman, tried to reason why she wanted her appearance to be marked before a bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma. She said: "I engaged a senior advocate. It's a common practice [asking to be marked for appearance]. Client would think, I did not appear."
However, Justice Bela refused and added: "We will discontinue this practice [marking names of counsels who did not argue]."
She added: "You should read our judgment on this. Why we are saying this. This only happens in the Supreme Court. Advocate-on-Record should be invariably present. But they are not. A day would come when we would not even record their appearance if they don't appear."
Delivering judgment in the 'fake' SLP case, the Bench had observed that Advocates-on-Record can mark the appearances of only those advocates who are authorized to appear and argue the case on a particular day of the hearing.
"Such names shall be given by the Advocate on Record on each day of hearing of the case as instructed in the Notice(Officer Circular dated 30.12.2022). If there is any change in the name of the arguing Advocate, it shall be duty of the concerned Advocate-on-Record to inform the concerned Court Master in advance or at the time of hearing of the case. The concerned Officers/Court Masters shall act accordingly", the judgment delivered by the bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma stated.
Previously, a bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Rajesh Bindal had ordered that online presence of only those advocates will be marked in the order those who were either appearing or assisting during hearing.