The Advocates Act 1961 provides that there shall be two classes of advocates - Senior advocates and other advocates. The designation of a Senior Advocate status process however lacks transparency. If you are able to lobby and work your way around, the Senior Advocate status is yours.
The procedure for the selection as Senior advocate lacks objectivity and leaves much to be desired. Can a person found unfit once or considered unfit at one point of time, make it through, the next time? What were the elements for not recommending an individual once, which changed so drastically after a while? The entire legal fraternity is aware that the system of processing the request to be designated as Senior Advocate and the modus operandi for that selection is non-objective, seemingly arbitrary and does not leave a clue to the person why he has been designated and why not. There is some kind of secrecy and non-openness in the manner that it is all done. Is it time to do away with this archaic Senior Advocate title? Regardless of which advocate is appearing, it should always be a level playing field on the Court turf. But at times some ‘Senior Advocates’ are favored in courts based on their personal chemistry with the presiding Judge and other issues rather than based on the substance of the case before the court. On many issues, a judge can exercise a lot of discretion and you may never find out as to how a particular Judge has favored a particular Advocate. If you want clues of how to tackle the Courts, you need to be in the company of India’s highest paid Advocate General. He has mastered that skill. Aires Rodrigues T1 - B30, Ribandar Retreat Ribandar - Goa - 403006 Mobile: 9822684372