In a dramatic course correction, the Supreme Court has dismantled the much-debated 100-point grading system used to decide who wears the silk of a Senior Advocate—declaring it a noble idea gone awry.
The method, birthed from the 2017 Indira Jaising judgment and reaffirmed in 2023, was supposed to usher in transparency and meritocracy. Instead, it ended up, as the Court put it, fostering inequality and eroding professional dignity.
A bench led by Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan didn’t mince words: requiring seasoned advocates to sit through interviews as part of the scoring matrix was not only “demeaning” but also incompatible with the stature of the designation itself. In their view, what was intended as a filter for excellence had turned into an exercise in subjectivity.
“The dignity of the legal profession is paramount,” the Court observed. “Making advocates—often with decades of experience—submit to personal interviews to assess ‘personality traits’ is inappropriate. It departs from the decorum traditionally attached to the bar.”
The bench acknowledged that while transparency remains vital, the present framework had turned mechanical, box-ticking what should have been an intuitive recognition of professional merit. Instead of a uniform bar, the Court saw a fragmented system producing inconsistent and questionable results across jurisdictions.
Going forward, a reimagined approach will guide the selection process. The Court has directed that Advocates will still apply, and a Permanent Committee will screen these applications. However, there will be no interviews. And the committee must give brief, written reasons for its selections—aiming for accountability without theatrics.
This recalibration attempts to strike a balance between fairness, transparency, and the time-honored traditions of the bar. In the Court’s own words, “Recognition must inspire dignity, not reduce it to a number.”
