Supreme Court To Hear Indira Jaising's Challenge Against "Secret Voting" To Confer Senior Designations On September 2

Jaising's application argued that the process of secret voting is "arbitrary and discriminatory".

Before a Bench of Justices, UU Lalit, Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia, Jaising today sought to de-tag her application from the other petitions which challenge the senior designations conferred by certain High Courts.

"My application is concerned with the interpretation of the original judgement (passed in 2017). I am not concerned with the disputes between those who have been designated or not designated. One suggestion could be, if your lordships could de-tag my application and hear me. The main issue is interpretation of the question of voting, because people are getting the cut off mark but being knocked out because of the votes. How does one deal with that situation?"

In the hearing, the court was served with a letter stating that Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was unwell and owing to this, the Union sought an adjournment in the matter.

Jaising had earlier filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking guidelines for objective criteria to be followed for conferring senior designations. In 2017, the Court had delivered a judgment in her petition, framing several guidelines and directing the High Courts to adopt the same by framing rules. 

Last year, Jaising moved an application in the writ petition seeking further guidelines by saying that there were anomalies in the rules framed by many High Courts. She sought directions that the cut-off marks should be announced in advance and that the process of secret voting by the Full Court should be stopped.

"On the last day it was indicated to me by your lordships that it [not announcing marks in advance] may not be the way to go about and we could have a discussion on that", Jaising said, during the hearing today.

Noting this, the Bench observed,

"You are right. Your application sectors around those issues emerging from the judgement or certain areas which may need some improvement. One issue is how many marks are to be granted, we accepted it readily on the last occasion. Such issues are present in your application.... We will list yours first. Thereafter, next week, all the other applications will be heard."

During a previous hearing in May, the Supreme Court clarified that while assessing applications for senior advocate designations, the High Courts should allocate one mark each for each year of practice from 10 to 20 years, instead of allocating 10 marks flat for the counsel who has put in 10-20 years practice. This clarification was made after Jaising highlighted that many High Courts follow the practice of granting 10 points for 10-20 years of practice. She submitted that she had received feedback from lawyers stating that everyone who had an experience between 10-19 years is being awarded the same marks.

In that hearing, SG Tushar Mehta hinted that the exercise would amount to reviewing the 2017 judgement in full.

Jaising countered the submission today.

"....that reviewing the entire judgement, as mentioned by Solicitor General on the last date of hearing, may be beyond the purview of the court proceedings. Because no application has been moved to that effect since 2017.

Case Title: Amar Vivek Aggarval & Ors v HC of P & H & connected pleas