NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pushed top lawyers — Abhishek Singhvi, Siddharth Luthra, Siddharth Dave and Anjana Prakash — to cede turf during summer break with a view to providing an opportunity to young lawyers to argue before the highest court.
Refusing to hear arguments of the four senior counsels, a vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said, “We won’t hear a senior counsel.”
When senior advocate Singhvi mentioned a matter related to Zydus Wellness Ltd for urgent hearing, the bench said, “Mr Singhvi, you are mentioning before a vacation bench. We won’t hear a senior counsel. Please ask your advocate on record to mention.”
The second incident happened shortly after when Senior Advocate Anjana Prakash attempted to mention a matter before the same bench. Asking the senior counsel to give opportunities to senior counsels to enhance their skills, Justice Nath said, “What are you doing here on vacation? We won’t hear you. We will hear the counsel next to you.”
Apart from the bench encouraging junior counsels to mention the matters, the court also adopted the same approach while hearing matters. While senior advocate Siddharth Dave was arguing a bail matter, the bench said, “We cannot hear senior counsels.”
Interestingly, the court’s firm stand of only allowing instructing counsels to argue resulted in Suneetha Narredy, daughter of deceased YS Vivekananda Reddy, arguing the plea challenging the anticipatory bail granted to MP YS Avinash Reddy by Telangana HC herself. Refusing to allow senior advocate Siddharth Luthra to argue the matter, the bench said, “You will put us in trouble for discriminating. You cannot argue, you may only assist.”
This is not the first time that the top court’s vacation bench had taken this view. Earlier in May, a vacation bench led by Justice JK Maheshwari had refused to grant senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi the liberty to mention a case. “We will record what you say. But as per the vacation norms, juniors are to be sent in listed mentioning,” the court had said.
Junior gets a chance
Interestingly, the firm stand by the Supreme Court vacation bench of only allowing instructing counsels to argue resulted in Suneetha Narredy, daughter of deceased YS Vivekananda Reddy, arguing the plea challenging the anticipatory bail granted to MP YS Avinash Reddy by Telangana High Court herself.