Lawyer Moves Supreme Court Challenging Delhi HC's Decision To Confer Senior Designation On 70 Advocates

A Writ petition has been filed before the Supreme Court challenging the Senior Designation of 70 advocates by the Delhi High Court. 

The plea, filed by Advocate Sanjay Dubey seeks the quashing of the notification dated November 29, 2024, by which 70  Advocates were notified to be designated as Senior Advocates and 67 Advocates were placed in a 'deferred list' upon the recommendations of the 'Permanent Commission'. 

The Committee comprised the then Chief Justice Manmohan, Justice Vibhu Bakhru, Justice Yashwant Varma, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, Senior Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog and Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur.

However, the designations have been clouded by controversy after Nandrajog resigned on the claim that the final list was drafted without his consent

The arguments raised for challenging the designations are:

(1) The entire process involved up till the designation violated the rules notified on 14.03.2024 by the Delhi High Court pursuant to the judgment of this Court in Indira Jaisingh vs Supreme Court of India, where the Apex Court laid down fresh guidelines for the Senior Designation process;

(2) The petitioner who was also a candidate was allegedly treated unfairly and unequally like several others of the total 303 applicants who applied for the designation; 

(3) Upon the resignation of one of the members of the 'Permanent Committee' for designation, Sr Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog, the secretariat proceeded to finalize the recommendations without filling the vacancy which is against the rules. The plea highlights:

"Upon resignation of one of the members from the 'Permanent Committee' defined under the rules for designation there existed no committee in the eyes of the law, which could have made a recommendation to the Full Court of Delhi High Court for designation of Advocates as Senior Advocates."

"The recommendation, though mentions the name of Sh. Sudhir Nandrajog as a member, but the same has neither been signed nor otherwise approved by him. Sh. Sudhir Nandrajog who had resigned citing all the illegalities in the process, represented the Government of NCT of Delhi in the said committee and it was therefore incumbent upon the 'Secretariat' to first fill that slot and reconstitute the 'Permanent Committee'." 

(4) The marks assigned to the applicants called till the interview stage have not been disclosed either publicly or communicated privately; 

(5) The plea alleges that the Permanent Committee included the President of the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) Sh. Mohit Mathur and several members from the executive committee of the DHCBA had applied for designation and were designated as Senior Advocates.  

It is further alleged that the list included names of advocates who were related to the current sitting High Court Judges.

(6) List included Advocates below the age limit - the Committee has sent the list which had names of the advocates who had not reached the age of 40 years as of the date of the application, which is a mandatory eligibility criterion.

Case Details : SANJAY DUBEY v. THE FULL COURT OF THE HON'BLE JUDGES OF THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI, THROUGH THE REGISTRAR GENERAL & ORS. | Diary No. 3045 / 2025