Supreme Court Directs Convening Of Special General Body Meeting Of SCBA On Or Before April 16 To Discuss Electoral Reforms

The Bench of Justices Surya Kant and KV Viswanathan passed this direction while hearing an application filed by a member of the bar association through Advocate-on-Record Pravir Choudhary seeking a relaxation of the norms for determining voter eligibility.

In August last year, the Bench directed the SCBA members, including its president and senior counsel Adhish C Aggarwala, to submit their suggestions regarding further reforms in the lawyers' body's election process.

In January, the top Court had asked the Association to consider the desirability of taking up all issues in its General Body Meeting.

SCBA's position has been that if anyone wants an amendment to the SCBA's election process, they should come forward with a requisition supported by at least 150 members, which the General Body will then vote on.

Against this aforestated background, the Court passed the above order and directed that a committee shall examine the representations/requisitions of all members. This committee shall comprise three Senior Advocates: S/Shri Shekhar Naphade, V. Giri, and S.B. Upadhyay. The committee was also allowed to seek other SCBA members' assistance as appropriate.

“Let all the valid representations/requisitions received by the Executive Committee of the Supreme Court Bar Association be placed in the said Special General Meeting.,” the Court added.

Finally, the Court requested observers submit their report before the next hearing date and posted the matter on April 19.

Case Background

In 2011, the Supreme Court in Supreme Court Bar Association v. BD Kaushik, upheld an amendment to a rule preventing a member of any other bar association who exercised their right to vote in the said high court, district court, or advocates' bar association to contest for any post at the Supreme Court Bar Association or cast their vote at the election to choose members of the SCBA Executive Committee. This verdict was delivered based on the principle 'one bar one vote'.

A bench of Justices J M Panchal and HL Gokhale noted in this judgment that some of the Supreme Court Bar Association members were not regular practitioners at the apex court and mostly made their presence felt during the elections. The court directed the criteria relating to chamber allotment laid down in the 1998 Vijay Balchandra ruling to be adopted to identify eligible voters.

For that purpose, an implementation committee comprising senior advocates KK Venugopal, PP Rao, and Ranjit Kumar was formed, which prescribed 50 appearances for senior advocates and non-advocates on record as one of the conditions to vote in the SCBA office-bearers elections. However, the parameters suggested by the implementation committee also led to intense confrontation between factions within the bar association. This conflict prompted a second round of litigation by way of an interlocutory application seeking clarifications regarding the implementation committee's criteria. After considering various suggestions offered by members of the SCBA to refine the criteria, the court disposed of the application with a direction to the implementation committee to modify the parameters in terms of the suggestions accepted by the bench and prepare a voters' list for the upcoming election accordingly.

According to the extant rules, SCBA members who have 50 appearances per year in the previous two years, those representing or appearing for the state government or the central government and having a total of at least 50 appearances for such government during the period of three calendar years, and those who entered the Supreme Court using their proximity card for 60 days in the concerned year would be eligible to vote.

Ahead of the 2023 SCBA elections held in the month of May, Advocate Surender Kumar Tyagi filed another interlocutory application seeking a relaxation of the aforesaid parameters for identifying eligible voters. He said that since punching machines at the entry gates of the Supreme Court had been non-functional since 2019 and new proximity cards under the upgraded security system had yet to be issued to all members, the registry had no database that could be relied on to determine the eligibility of a voter. The advocate further pointed out that the total number of appearances made by a member in 2021 was affected by the court pivoting to a virtual format in view of the COVID-19 norms.

The application reads: “During the last few years, the members of the Supreme Court Bar Association whose names were there in the previous year's voter list were carried forward as the current voter lists of the members of the Supreme Court Bar Association…There are several members who could not fulfil the first criteria as per the judgment requiring 50 appearances in 2021 and 2022. The members may not opt for the second alternative option of 60 entries through proximity cards as the punching machines are not functional since 2019 due to the upgradation of the security system and the new machines installed are not fully functional due to the non-completion of the process of issuing proximity cards to all members.”

Claiming that these circumstances were discriminatory against regular practitioners and members of the Supreme Court Bar Association and violate their right to participate in their own association, Tiyagi sought a relaxation of the eligibility criteria to enable regular practitioners to vote in the 2023 elections.

Case Title: Supreme Court Bar Association v. BD Kaushik, Diary No. 13992/2023

Click here to read the order