Rethinking Senior Advocate Designation: A Qualitative Turn in the Supreme Court’s Approach

In the landmark judgment of Jitender v. State (NCT of Delhi)¹ delivered on 13-5-2025, the three-Judge Bench of Supreme Court revisited and significantly overhauled the process to designate Senior Advocates in the entire country. The judgment marks a paradigm shift from the quantitative approach of designating Senior Advocates on the 100 point-based overall assessment to a qualitative approach based on the consensus of Full Court. The decision² has come in the wake of serious concerns raised about transparency, fairness and effectiveness of the current point-based system.

The current system: A quantitative approach

The 100 point-based overall assessment for designating Senior Advocates was introduced through the 2017 judgment of Supreme Court in Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India³ (Indira Jaising-1) and subsequently amended through the 2023 judgment of Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India⁴ (Indira Jaising-2). The system was introduced by the Supreme Court to streamline and set uniform parameters/guidelines to govern the process of designating Senior Advocates under Section 16⁵ of the Advocates Act, 1961⁶. The Advocates Act, 1961 recognises two classes of advocates, namely, Senior Advocates and other advocates. The Act further provides that an advocate may be designated as Senior Advocate if the Supreme Court or a High Court is of an opinion that his ability, standing at Bar, or special knowledge or experience in law deserves such distinction. However, it was noticed by the Supreme Court in Indira Jaising-1⁷ that there was no uniform criteria or yardstick — age, income, length of practice, requirement of practice — adopted by different High Courts in the country. Thus, the 100 point-based system was adopted in which 20 marks were assigned of years of practice; 40 marks were assigned for judgments and other works; 15 marks were assigned for publications; and 25 marks were assigned for interview. Indira Jaising-2⁸ increased the marks assigned for judgments and other work to 50 and reduced the marks for publications to 5. The marking criteria for years of practice was changed to 10 marks for minimum 10 years of practice and 1 mark for each year completed after 10 years of practice.

Under the current process, permanent Secretariats were established in the Supreme Court and all the High Courts of the country to receive the applications from advocates desirous of being designated as Senior Advocate. The applicants submit their applications in prescribed format along with the supporting documents that usually run into few thousands of pages. The permanent Secretariat collates the data pertaining to different criterion and submits it to the Permanent Committee for perusal and scrutiny.

The Permanent Committee under the current regime is a five-member body in which the Chief Justice along with two seniormost Judges are members from the judicial side. Apart from them, the fourth member is the Attorney General of India/the Advocate General of the State and the fifth member is an advocate nominated by the four members. The Permanent Committee examines each case considering the data provided by the permanent Secretariat, interviews the advocate who has applied for senior designation and make its overall assessment on 100 points.

Thereafter, all the names cleared by the Permanent Committee are put up before Full Court. The Full Court then considers the names cleared by the Permanent Committee unanimously or through ballot voting. The ballot voting is not expected to be resorted normally. In Indira Jaising-2⁹, the Supreme Court instructed that the reasons for resorting to secret ballot must be recorded by the Full Court.

The eye opener: Immediate cause for reviewing the current system

In Jitender case¹⁰ was referred by a Division Bench of the Supreme Court to the three-Judge Bench for reconsidering the earlier decisions of Indira Jaising-1¹¹ and Indira Jaising-2¹². The Division Bench was of a view that serious introspection was required to ensure only deserving advocates are designated as Senior Advocates. The current regime was marred by certain inherent defects that allowed an advocate to be designated as Senior Advocate if there were enough points to his credit in the 100 points system despite numerous complaints of misconduct pending. It must be noted that there is no system of negative marking in case an advocate lacks integrity or is not fair to the Court.

Further, it was felt that subjecting advocates to appear for an interview/interaction who deserves to be Senior Advocates compromise their dignity. It converts the process of designation into a selection process. Also, the marks for years of practice can be gained even if the advocate was merely registered with the Bar Council. It becomes difficult for the Chief Justice and other members of Permanent Committee to review the judgments and articles submitted by the advocates to assign suitable marks under that category.

The new system: A qualitative approach

A three-Judge Bench led by Abhay S. Oka, J. critically analysed the procedural framework set forth in Indira Jaising cases¹³ and incorporated suggestions from various stakeholders, inter alia, the Solicitor General, the Attorney General, different High Courts, Bar Associations and individual practitioners. The crux of the matter was whether the current process — involving Permanent Committee, point-based assessment, and personal interviews — truly uphold the statutory principles of ability, standing at Bar, and special knowledge or experience in law. Pointing out at various defects, the Court opined that the ability and standing of advocates cannot be reduced to numeric scores or limited to publications or interviews.

Thus, under the new system, the Supreme Court has done away with the 100 point-based assessment and personal interviews/interactions. The permanent Secretariat is retained to receive the applications and collate the information. But the applications found eligible shall be placed directly before the Full Court. There shall be no Permanent Committee in between. The decision to designate an advocate as Senior Advocate shall be based on the consensus of the Full Court. In cases where a consensus cannot be arrived, the decision-making shall be done through voting. The decision of secret ballot has been left to the High Court concerned. While the individual Judges cannot recommend an advocate for the designation, however, the Full Court can confer the designation dehors the application. The ten years of practice shall be minimum qualification and at least one exercise of designation should be taken up every calendar year.

The way forward

The Court has refrained from invalidating Indira Jaising decisions¹⁴ outrightly but exercised its powers under Article 142¹⁵ of the Constitution of India to refine and recalibrate the framework. It has directed all the High Courts to frame the rules either by amending or substituting the existing rules within 4 months. This should not be seen as the end of the day. As the Court itself highlighted “the process of improvement is a continuous one and we learn from every experience”. A lot needs to be done.

Without any prejudice to the rules framed by High Courts — integrity, professional conduct and Bar Standing — should remain central to the assessment factored through peer reviews, stakeholder feedback and court records. The proposal to include advocates practicing before trial courts and specialised tribunals shall pose another challenge that may have its own learning curve to be recalibrated through future judgments. The new system shall miss out any representation from the Bar, which may be a pinching point for the Bar Council.

A notable takeaway is the strong judicial acknowledgment that Senior Advocate designation is not a badge of privilege but a solemn recognition of merit and integrity. The judgment marks a crucial step in retaining faith and credibility in the process of senior designation.