Supreme Court designates 56 lawyers as senior advocates

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday designated as many as 56 advocates as senior advocates in its decision taken by a full court meeting.

Prominent among those who got the prestigious designation are Additional Advocate General of Tamil Nadu Amit Anand Tiwari, Uttar Pradesh's Additional Advocate General Ardhendumauli Kumar Prasad and Madhya Pradesh's Additional Advocate General Saurabh Mishra.

Advocate Shobha Gupta, who has taken up cases on behalf of Bilkis Bano, is one of the counsels who got the senior advocate designation.

Former Karnataka's Additional Advocate General Nikhil Goel and former standing counsel of Karnataka Joseph Aristotle and activist advocate Karuna Nundy, who fought cases on behalf of the victims of the 1984 Bhopal Gas leak case, are also on the list of senior advocates.

Advocate Gaurav Agrawal who acted as amicus curiae in a number of matters appointed by the top court, was also conferred with the designation of senior advocate.

Those from Karnataka who got the senior advocate designations are advocates Sanjay M Nuli, Shailesh Madiyal and Raghavendra S Srivatsa.

The Supreme Court had in 2021 took up the exercise of designation of senior advocates.

According to 2023 'Guidelines for Designation of Senior Advocates by the Supreme Court of India', all matters relating to the designation would be dealt with by a permanent committee to be known as the 'Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates' with the Chief Justice of India as it Chairperson, two senior-most Judges of the Supreme Court of India, Attorney General for India and others.

Among the conditions for designation of a senior advocate is 10 years standing as an advocate.