Advocate Moves Supreme Court Challenging P&H High Court's Refusal Of Senior Designation

The Supreme Court is set to hear a writ petition filed by Advocate Satish Chaudhary, challenging the non-inclusion of his name in the list of advocates designated as 'Senior Advocates' by the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently.

The petitioner had raised issues of transparency, objectivity and fairness in the process of senior designation of advocates by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. It is the petitioner's case that, despite securing higher marks, his name was not placed before the Full Court for consideration, while certain advocates who had secured lower marks were ultimately designated as Senior Advocates, without considering the fact that the Petitioner belongs to a marginalised community.

A reliance has been placed on the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in 2017 and 2023 Indira Jaising judgments on senior advocate designation.

The matter was taken up today before a bench comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma. The bench has kept the matter for next week. Notice is yet to be issued on this writ petitiion.

It may be recalled that the two judgments established a Permanent Committee comprising the Chief Justice and two senior most judges of the Supreme Court or the High Court, along with the Attorney General or the Advocate General of the State, as the case may be, who has to award points to each applicant based on the criteria such as 20 points based on the number of practice years, 50 points for reported judgments, 5 points for publications and 25 points based on the interview. This was called as point-based assessment.

This system was scrapped by the Supreme Court last year after revisiting the 2017 and 2023 judgments.

Case Details: SATISH CHAUDHARY Vs HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA|W.P.(C) No. 371/2026 Diary No. 17846 / 2026

Appearances: Advocates Sunieta Ojha and Ms. Fozia Rahman, assisted by advocates Ms. Pragti Bhatia and Vasudha Priyansha(for petitioner)