71 Senior Advocate Designations: Controversy Over Committee's Selection Process

Days after Delhi High Court’s notification designating 71 Advocates as Senior Advocates received widespread public attention, Senior Advocate Nandrajog, who was a member of the permanent committee tasked with the selection process, has reportedly said that the list was sent ahead without his consent.It is pertinent to mention that the comprehensive selection process involved interviews of 302 candidates for conferment of the coveted Senior Designation post, a career milestone for lawyers featuring on the list. A report published by Hindustan Times has quoted Senior Advocate Nandrajog stating that the List was sent to him for a post facto signature while he was busy with arbitrations.

The report casts a doubt on whether the selection process was marred with procedural anomalies and whether questions will be raised over its validity. Meanwhile the notification with recommendations of 71 names for the distinguished title was out in the public domain on November 29. The six member permanent committee responsible for the selection process included the names of seasoned leaders in the legal fraternity including Chief Justice Manmohan, Justice Vibhu Bakhru, Justice Yashwant Varma, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, Senior Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog and Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur.

The complete list of the Advocates designated as Senior Advocates by the Delhi High Court is as follows:

Gautam Narayan

Sanjeev Sagar

Sumeet Verma

Anupam Srivastava

Manu Sharma

Pavan Narang

Sanjay Dewan

Sonu Bhatnagar

Rajdipa Behura

Pooja Mehra Saigal

Apoorv Kurup

Puneet Taneja

Kunal Tandon

Sumit Bansal

Samrat Rabinder Nigam

Anuraag Ahluwalia

Tanveer Ahmed Mir

Jeevesh Nagrath

Abhijat

Harish V Shankar

Kaadambari

Santosh Tripathi

Swati Sukumar

Vibha Mahajan Seth

Ashim Vachher

Amit Chadha

Abhishek Malhotra

Kirtiman Singh

Manik Dogra

Nandita Rao

Vaibhav Rajgopal Gaggar

Sandip Prabhakar

Ashish Mohan

Diya Kapur

Manish Sharma

Jatan Singh

Sumeet Pushkarna

Rashmi Chabra

Sandeep Sharma

 Sai Deepak J

 Ajay Arora

Madhav Khurana

Manish Kumar Jha

Sanjay Sharawat

Aseem Chawla

Surya Kant Singla

Mriganga Dutta

Gaurav Sarin

Priya Kumar

Anil Soni

Ravi Prakash

Arundhati Katju

Buddy Anumalasetti Ranganadhan

 Ankit Jain

Tamali Wad

Jitendra Sethi

Shyel Trehan

Dharmesh Misra

Uttam Datt

Gyanendra Kumar

Avininder Singh

Pradeep Kumar Bakshi

Jagdeep Sharma

Rajiv Saxena

Shashank Garg

Aditya Narain

Parvinder Chauhan

Sachit Jolly

Asheesh Jain

Pragyan Pradip Sharma