The Delhi High Court has conferred Senior Advocate designation to 71 Advocates, including engineer turned Advocate and author J. Sai Deepak.

In a separate but related development, the Full Court of the Supreme Court designated Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Raghavendra P. Shankar as Senior Advocate with effect from November 29, 2024. He was notified as an ASG on September 9 by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions (Department of Personnel & Training).

The Delhi High Court Senior Advocate list also includes Advocate Arundhati Katju, who appeared for one of the Petitioners in the marriage equality case before the Supreme Court
opposite to Sai Deepak, who appeared for one of the Respondents, in support of the Union Government. Sai Deepak is the author of books including India That Is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution.
The designation was decided by the Permanent Committee of the Delhi High Court in accordance with the High Court of Delhi Designation of Senior Advocate Rules, 2024.

The Permanent Committee that made the selection comprised of the Chief Justice Manmohan, Justice Vibhu Bakhru, Justice Yashwant Varma, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and Senior Advocates Sudhir Nandrajog and Mohit Mathur.

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

1. Gautam Narayan
2. Sanjeev Sagar
3. Sumeet Verma
4. Anupam Srivastava
5. Manu Sharma
6. Pavan Narang
7. Sanjay Dewan
8. Sonu Bhatnagar
9. Rajdipa Behura
10. Pooja Mehra Saigal
11. Apoorv Kurup
12. Puneet Taneja
13. Kunal Tandon
14. Sumit Bansal
15. Samrat Rabinder Nigam
16. Anuraag Ahluwalia
17. Tanveer Ahmed Mir
18. Jeevesh Nagrath
19. Abhijat
20. Harish V Shankar
21. Kaadambari
22. Santosh Tripathi
23. Swati Sukumar
24. Vibha Mahajan Seth
25. Ashim Vachher
26. Amit Chadha
27. Abhishek Malhotra
28. Kirtiman Singh
29. Manik Dogra
30. Nandita Rao
31. Vaibhav Rajgopal Gaggar
32. Sandip Prabhakar
33. Ashish Mohan
34. Diya Kapur
35. Manish Sharma
36. Jatan Singh
37. Sumeet Pushkarna
38. Rashmi Chabra
39. Sandeep Sharma
40. Sai Deepak J
41. Ajay Arora
42. Madhav Khurana
43. Manish Kumar Jha
44. Sanjay Sharawat
45. Aseem Chawla
46. Surya Kant Singla
47. Mriganga Dutta
48. Gaurav Sarin
49. Priya Kumar
50. Anil Soni
51. Ravi Prakash
52. Arundhati Katju
53. Buddy Anumalasetti Ranganadhan
54. Ankit Jain
55. Tamali Wad
56. Jitendra Sethi
57. Shyel Trehan
58. Dharmesh Misra
59. Uttam Datt
60. Gyanendra Kumar
61. Avininder Singh
62.- Pradeep Kumar Bakshi
63. Jagdeep Sharma
64. Rajiv Saxena
65. Shashank Garg
66. Aditya Narain
67. Parvinder Chauhan
68. Sachit Jolly
69. Asheesh Jain
70. Pragyan Pradip Sharma.
The resolution says the Permanent Committee evaluated all the candidates who applied for Senior Advocate designation except three. The evaluation of one of the candidates was deferred on account of medical reasons, and the decision on two candidates were deferred as the Committee was yet to consider their request for relaxation of the eligibility criteria.
Process of designation

The High Court of Delhi Designation of Senior Advocate Rules, 2024 state that all matters relating to the designation of Senior Advocates by the High Court is to be dealt with by a Permanent Committee to be known as the 'Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates'. The Committee, which is required to meet once every calendar year, comprises of the following members:-

1. The Chief Justice of the High Court as the chairperson of the Permanent Committee

2. Two Senior most Judges of the High Court as members

3. Additional Solicitor General (High Court of Delhi) as a Member

4. One member nominated by the Administrative Committee of the High Court out of the names of three Senior Advocates given by the Government ofNCT of Delhi - Member

5. One member of the Bar nominated by the Administrative Committee of the High Court

Eligibility criteria

The rules prescribe that no person shall be eligible for being designated as Senior Advocate unless:

(i) they have practiced as an Advocate at the Bar for not less than 10 years;

(ii) are enrolled with the Bar Council constituted under the Advocates Act, 1961;

(iii) have been mainly practicing in the High Court and the Courts Subordinate to it;

(iv) have appeared and argued cases or provided legal services pro-bono; and

(v) have attained the age of 40 years, unless the age limit is relaxed by the Permanent Committee.

Delhi High Court

Tushar Kohli