New Delhi : The Supreme Court of India on Friday designated 56 advocates including 11 women as Senior Advocates. The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) had in August last year, urged the CJI and other Supreme Court judges to adopt a liberal approach while designating deserving and meritorious advocates as Senior Advocates. At the time, the association had emphasized that due to a judicial challenge, coupled with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the senior designation process of lawyers had happened only once in the last eight years.
The designations were made after a committee headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud interviewed over 200 applicants for the gown. Then 56 lawyers have been conferred the gown. The last instance of senior designation of lawyers was in December 2021 when 18 lawyers were conferred the gown. In May 2022 and October 2023, the Court had conferred senior gown on retired High Court judges including Justices Talwant Singh, Dr. S Muralidhar and PN Prakash though no lawyers were given the gown in that round of designations.
Prior to this, the Supreme Court Advocate on Record Association (SCAORA) had filed an application before the top court seeking a direction to the Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates (CDSA) to conclude the process of appointing senior advocates with regard to applications that were invited in February 2022.
