Appearance Of Only Advocates Physically Present & Arguing In Court & One Advocate Assisting In Court Will Be Recorded: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court passed orders on Wednesday (March 19) regarding the recording of advocates' appearances in cases.

The Court stated that the appearances of only Senior Advocates or Advocate-on-Record or Advcoate, who are physically present and arguing in the Court at the time of hearing of the matter and one Advocate/Advocate-on-Record each for assistance in Court to such arguing Sr Advocate, Advocate-on-Record or Advocate, as the case may be, will be recorded in the record of proceedings. The Court noted that the Appearance Slip as per Form 30 prescribed by the SC Rules only allowed the recording of these appearances.

"Therefore, along with the arguing Senior Advocate or AOR or Advocate appearing for a party, further additional appearance of only one Advocate or AOR as the case may be, who is assisting in the matter, could be recorded," the Court observed.

The Court further observed that the appearances in the Supreme Court should be strictly as per the Supreme Court Rules 2013.

The Court passed the following directions as well.

 1. If the Vakalatnama is executed in the presence of the Advocate on Record, he shall certify that it was executed in his presence. If AoR merely accepts the vakalatnama which was already duly executed in the presence of a notary or an advocate, he shall make an endorsement that he has satisfied himself of the due execution of the vakalatnama.

2. The AoR shall furnish the details as required in the appearance slip prescribed in Form No. 30 through the link provided on the website as mentioned in the notice dated December 30, 2022, issued by the Supreme Court.

3. The Court Masters shall ensure to record the appearance in the record of proceedings only of Senior Advocates, AoRs or Advocates who are physically present and arguing in the Court at the time of the hearing of the matter and one AoR or Advocate each for assistance in Court to such arguing Sr Advocate, AoR or Advocate as required in the note mentioned at the foot of Form 30.

4. If there is change in the authorisation of the AoR, or the Senior Advocate or the arguing Advocate by the concerned party, after the submission of the appearance slip in Form 30, it shall be the duty of the concerned AoR to submit an appearance slip afresh to the concerned court masters informing them of the such change and the court master shall then record the appearance of such advocates.

5. A Senior advocate shall not appear without an AoR in the Supreme Court.

With the above directions and observations, a bench comprising Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma disposed of a Miscellaneous Application jointly filed by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) seeking clarifications of the direction passed in September 2024 that only the appearances of those lawyers who argue or appear in a case would be recorded. The said direction was passed in the case Bhagwan Das v. State of UP in which the Court issued CBI enquiry against lawyers who filed a fake SLP by forging the signatures of a party in the vakalatnama.

The SCBA and the SCAORA took objection to the direction regarding the marking of appearances, saying that it would result in unfairness towards those lawyers who assisted in the drafting of the petition and research work. 'Appearance' before the Court should not be narrowly understood to mean 'arguing', they submitted. It may be noted that both the SCBA and SCAORA have filed a separate writ petition also seeking a declaration that all Advocates present and appearing in a case are entitled to get their appearances recorded in the orders as per the Supreme Court Rules.

In the judgment passed today, the Court observed that the directions regarding the recording of appearances were passed after noting that the order sheets in many cases ran into several pages with the names of advocates, though all of them may not have been physically present in the Court.

Pronouncing the verdict, Justice Trivedi said :

"A strange practice was being followed in the Supreme Court regarding the marking of the presence of the number of advocates for the party, without anybody certifying whether they all are authorised to appear for the party. In most of the matters, simple or complicated, a number of appearances of advocates would be shown in the proceedings, running into pages and pages, without any verification as to whether such advocates were in fact present in the Court or were in fact authorised to appear for a particular party."

Though an enrolled Advocate is entitled to appear before the Supreme Court, the appearance is subject to the conditions in the Supreme Court Rules 2013.

Every vakalatnama or Memorandum of Appearance filed in the case carries a lot of responsibility and accountability, the Court added.

The arguments raised by the SCBA and SCAORA that the earlier directions should be modified since the record of appearances impact an advocate's eligibility for chamber allotment, contesting in elections etc., were rejected by the Court.

"We are of the opinion that said Supreme Court Rules, 2013, as amended by Rules 2019, having statutory force have to be adhered to and complied with all the officers of the court and also the advocates practising in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, being the highest court of the country, the practice and procedure followed in the Supreme Court proceedings by advocates and officers of the Supreme Court have to be strictly as per the statutory rules and not de hors those rules."

Case Details: SUPREME COURT BAR ASSOCIATION AND ANR. v. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH AND ORS., MA 3-4/2025 in Crl.A. No. 3883-3884/2024

Appearances:  Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Rachana Srivastava etc. MA has been filed through Advocate Amit Sharma and under instructions of Vikrant Yadav, Secretary SCBA and Nikhil Jain, Secretary SCAORA.

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 320

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