“How can you treat defendant number two (CJI) and defendant number three (full court) as parties?” It says.
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Monday made an exception by making Chief Justice of India one of the party’s responders in a plea challenging the designation of lawyers as senior supporters.
A bench headed by Justice SK Kaul asked lawyer Mathews J Nedumpara, who along with others filed the petition, how they arranged the chief justice of India and the entire court of judges of the court. the highest court, through the secretary general, as the respondent.
“Look at the array of parties. You are a lawyer with 40 years of experience. How can you treat defendant number two (CJI) and defendant number three (full court) as parties? First, you should amend your statement. memo of the parties,” the bench, which also includes Justice A Amanullah and Justice Aravind Kumar, said.
The bench said it would not accept such a “cavalier approach” to the highest court. It told Mr Nedumpara that by the time the supreme court registry objected to it, the petitioners should have had to amend it.
It observed that the Supreme Court could be considered a party through the registry, asking him to amend the parties’ memorandum and said the suit would only be listed for trial afterwards. .
Mr Nedumpara said he would remove them from the list of parties and would make the amendment within a day.
The bench said there is a three-judge bench ruling on the matter and that the petitioners will have to convince the court of why the matter should be moved to a larger bench.
“On the other hand, we are bound by the three-judge bench. There is judicial discipline on our side,” the bench said, adding that the three-judge bench’s ruling said that segregation This distinction, which the petitioners are seeking to attack, is valid.
When the attorney said he would make the amendments within a day, the bench said if that was done, the plea would go to trial on March 24.
While hearing a series of separate pleas, the top court on March 16 reserved its order as to whether the court’s 2017 ruling provides guidelines for the court itself and whether the high court appointing attorneys as senior advocates requires any adjustments. The Supreme Court previously said the October 2017 ruling noted that the guidelines listed therein “may not be exhaustive on the matter and may require reconsideration by appropriate addition/removal.” based on experience gained over a period of time”.
Some advocates sought a statement on the process adopted by several high courts to award ‘senior’ titles to advocates through a full court secret ballot process as ” arbitrary and discriminatory”.
In 2017, the highest court issued guidelines for itself and the high courts to govern the practice of appointing seniors counsel.
One of the guidelines states that advocates with 10 to 20 years of practice experience will be awarded 10 points each for their experience while being considered for senior designation.
The ruling, delivered with a series of instructions, said: “All matters concerning the appointment of senior advocates in the Supreme Court and all the high courts of the country will be dealt with by a standing committee known as the ‘Senior Advocates Appointment Committee’.” The panel shall be headed by the Chief Justice and shall consist of the two most senior justices of the highest court or superior court(s), as applicable, and the Attorney General or Attorney General of a state in the case. high court case, it has said.
When empowering to represent the Delegation, it said, “The four members of the Standing Committee will nominate another member of the Delegation as the fifth member of the Standing Committee”.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from the aggregate feed.)
