Senior designation system: Supreme Court flags concerns and refers the matter to the CJI

On February 20, 2025 (Thursday), the Supreme Court (SC) flagged concerns with the senior designation system. The bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan referred the matter to Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and said, “We mean no disrespect towards the two binding decisions [in Indira Jaising case] and we are recording our concerns only to enable the Chief Justice to decide whether the doubt expressed by us needs to be considered by a larger bench.” The issues flagged by the bench include:

• No advocate can seek a designation as it is a privilege to be conferred by the Supreme Court or the High Court.
• Whether an interview (25 points out of 100 points are assigned for interviews) of a few minutes is sufficient for testing a candidate’s personality and suitability. The bench noted, “The Permanent Committee is expected to make a comprehensive assessment based on a point-based system, yet no alternative evaluation method has been established.” No one can dispute that an advocate who lacks integrity or fairness is entitled to designation. The court asked, “The reason is simple as such an advocate cannot be held to have any standing at the bar. Moreover, there may be complaints pending against the advocate in the disciplinary committees of the bar councils. The question is how the cases of such advocates can be considered by the Permanent Committee.” It added, “Even if members of the Permanent Committee know that the applicant-advocate lacks integrity or is not fair, or does not act as an officer of the court or against whom complaints are pending for professional misconduct, there is no scope to reduce the points on the account if such an advocate excels at the time of interview or otherwise renders excellent performance, he cannot be given lesser marks because the candidate lacks integrity.” The reason is that 25 marks are to be assigned not based on the performance before the Court or general reputation but on the performance during the interview.
• “It is usual practice that applicants submit many judgments in which they have appeared and submit copies of books and many articles written by them, if members of the Permanent Committee are expected to go through every judgment submitted by the candidates to assign 50 marks. To assign marks on publications, they are expected to go through many articles and books. Whether 3 senior judges including the Chief Justice should spend hours together for 1 candidate is a question that needs serious consideration.” 

Lastly, the SC said, “The points-based assessment is not free from defects, the question is whether it can form the basis of assessment of an advocate.”