Never said conduct interviews to designate lawyers as seniors Indira Jaising to SC

New Delhi, Mar 20 (PTI) Senior advocate Indira Jaising on Thursday opposed in the Supreme Court the direction for conducting interviews for the conferment of senior designation to lawyers.
     A three judge special bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka, Ujjal Bhuyan and S V N Bhatti heard several lawyers including solicitor general Tushar Mehta, for the apex court administration, and Jaising who moved the top court seeking guidelines on the issue.
     The top court, hearing a batch of petitions, reserved its judgement on whether there was a need to reconsider the 2017 judgement on the process for conferring senior designations to advocates.
     Jaising said she never made the suggestion that there should be an interview of lawyers for conferring the senior designation and yet it was laid down in the judgement and moreover, 25 marks for the interview was also assigned.
     "I had not suggested an interview at all. Then when the judgement was delivered I heard the learned judge reading it out and saying that 25 marks will be here for the interview. I never suggested 25 marks. It is quite large. I leave it to the court to decide what to do with 25 marks…,” she said.
     Jaising also referred to the procedures adopted in various foreign countries.
     Mehta, however, said, "Every country has country specific issues. Instead of going into the systems prevailing in other countries, time has come to re-Indianise the Indian jurisprudence."
     Jaising said it was for the full court to take a call whether or not to follow the secret voting system for conferring senior designation to lawyers and it couldn't be decided on the judicial side.
     “Designation of senior advocate is not an election and hence, whether a secret ballot should be employed or not is something which the full court should consider,” she said.
     On March 19, Mehta said there was a need to reconsider the 2017 judgement on the process for conferring senior designations to advocates.
     The bench was hearing a batch of pleas over the reconsideration of the senior designation process as envisaged in two verdicts on Jaising's plea.
     The first judgement was rendered by a three judge bench headed by former Justice Ranjan Gogoi on October 12, 2017.
     It issued a slew of guidelines including setting up of a permanent committee led by the Chief Justice of India to accord senior designation to lawyers.
     Then came the second judgement and now the bench would decide whether or not the previous directions need tweaking.
     The law officer said only the court in which an advocate was practising should designate the advocate as senior and “any system where an individual judge recommends a certain lawyer to be designated as a senior should be stopped”.
     The system of individual members, Mehta said, deciding the basis of marks like a collegium should be disbanded and the decision on senior designations should be a collective one of the Supreme Court or the high court.
     Using cricket as an analogy, Mehta said a lawyer's performance in court--akin to the field-- should be the criteria and such a decision should be made through secret ballot voting to avoid “manipulation and lobbying”.
     On February 25, the top court sought response from all the high courts and other stakeholders on the issue of reconsideration of the process of the designation of senior advocates.
     The top court on February 20 said a "serious introspection" was required when it came to designating lawyers as senior advocates and referred the issue to Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna for deciding whether a larger bench should hear the matter.
     The bench also expressed doubts whether by interviewing a candidate for a few minutes, their personality or suitability could really be tested.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)