Supreme Court issues new guidelines for senior advocate designations

Designation decisions must rest with the full court of the Supreme Court, or the respective high court and applications found eligible by the permanent secretariat, along with supporting documents

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a fresh set of guidelines, discarding the existing marking-based evaluation system in the process to designate senior advocates.

The Supreme Court has given all high courts four months to frame new rules in accordance with its directions. (Representative file photo)

The marking-based assessment system was introduced through the landmark Indira Jaising judgments in 2017 and 2023.

A special bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka, Ujjal Bhuyan, and SVN Bhatti held that the existing framework, which awards marks for categories such as years of practice, reported judgments, publications, and interviews, will no longer apply to future designations. The Court stressed the need for diversity and representation, particularly of advocates practising in trial courts, and said that new rules must be framed accordingly.

Reading out a portion of the verdict, Justice Oka said, “We direct that the directions contained in paragraph 73.7 of Indira Jaising I, as amended by Indira Jaising II, shall not be implemented.”

The court has given all high courts four months to frame new rules in accordance with its directions.

According to the order, designation decisions must rest with the full court of the Supreme Court, or the respective high court and applications found eligible by the permanent secretariat, along with supporting documents, must be placed before the full court.

The court designating seniors should aim for consensus and if that is not possible, a democratic method of voting should be adopted, the Supreme Court said.

The special bench also said secret ballots can be used at a court’s discretion.

The minimum eligibility of 10 years of practice for one to be eligible for the senior advocate designation though, will remain unchanged and while advocates can continue to apply for designation, courts can also confer the designation dehors an application in deserving cases, the Apex Court has said.

While processes already underway under the previous Indira Jaising framework will continue, no new applications should be accepted until new rules are framed, the Supreme Court said.

The Apex Court’s order follows hearings in March this year where several advocates raised concerns about the fairness and transparency of the current system for appointing senior advocates, particularly the weightage given to brief interviews conducted for applicants and the perceived disadvantage faced by trial court lawyers.

Under the Advocates Act, 1961, the Supreme Court and High Courts can designate senior advocates based on their ability, legal standing at the Bar and expertise. Before 2017, each High Court followed its own criteria, often leading to inconsistencies and lack of uniform standards. In 2017, the Supreme Court, while hearing a PIL filed by senior advocate Jaising, introduced a system standardising the designation process, grading all applicants on a scale of 100.

It made way for a Permanent Committee comprising the Chief Justice and two senior most judges of the Supreme Court or the High Court, along with the Attorney General or the Advocate General of the State, as the case may be, to award such points.

In 2023, the Supreme Court fine-tuned the framework by modifying the weightage assigned to judgements and publications.

However, on 20 February 2025, when a Division Bench comprising Justices Oka and AG Masih was hearing an unrelated case, it realised that a senior advocate had deliberately misrepresented facts in a case. The bench then expressed concerns over the process of designating a lawyer as a senior advocate and referred the issue to Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, urging the CJI to constitute a larger bench to hear the case. They noted that since both the Indira Jaising decisions in 2017 and 2023 were delivered by three-judge benches, only a larger bench could reconsider them. Following this, a Special Bench comprising Justices Oka, Bhuyyan, and Bhatti was constituted to hear the case.