3 Chandigarh lawyers approach SC against fresh senior advocates’ list

Plea claims that full court was not afforded enough time to go through complete records of all 112 candidates

Three city lawyers have approached the Supreme Court against the full court decision of the Punjab and Haryana high court on the designation of 19 as senior advocates.

The plea alleges that one of the candidates selected outside the list happened to be the wife of a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court, and the three judges who participated in the proceedings had their relatives as candidates. (HT FILE PHOTO)

Lawyers Amar Vivek, Krishan Kumar Gupta and Harbhajan Singh Dhandi were among the 112 applicants who have demanded quashing of the notification on designations, directions to produce the complete records of proceedings and stay on implementation of the notification. The plea is likely to be taken up for hearing next week.

The permanent panel headed by the chief justice had recommended 27 lawyers’ names including three women for consideration as senior advocates. However, eight names were dropped after full court proceedings.

The plea alleges that the HC violated the mandatory and binding directions of the Supreme Court and Rules 9 to 11 framed by the HC pursuant to the Indira Jaising case. The entire result of 112 candidates was never placed before the full court for approval, the plea says.

It claims that the full court was convened with a single agenda, to approve 27 shortlisted names, and was not afforded enough time to go through the complete records of the candidates, to enable it to “apply its own independent mind”.

“Thus, the full court had no material, whatsoever, to apply its own independent mind on 27 selectees or on the remaining 85 candidates, nor the relative merit by way of scores of the latter vis a vis the ones shortlisted had been placed,” it says, adding that seemingly the objection to this was raised before full court too.

The plea says that as per the initial suggestions, the committee drew 41 names with 55 marks cut off. However, on May 23, another list of 24 was reportedly made.

“The full court resorted to secret voting, albeit without any exceptional circumstances or recording of reasons in writing... Out of the list of 27 names, 18 names were approved,” the plea says, adding that one of the candidates selected outside the list happened to be the wife of a former HC judge, and the three judges who participated in the proceedings had their relatives as candidates.