Know about the Advocate-on-Record system in the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court this week pulled up an Advocate-on-Record (AoR) for filing a frivolous case and dismissed the public interest litigation. The Court censured the lawyer that an AoR cannot merely be a “signing authority.”
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sudhanshu Dhulia, and PK Mishra also called for a “comprehensive plan” for reforming and improving the AoR system of the top court, which will be drawn up in collaboration with the Bar.
But who is an AoR and why does the Supreme Court have a special category of advocates?
Who is an AoR?
Only an AoR can file cases before the Supreme Court. An AoR might engage other lawyers including senior counsels to argue before the Court but the AoR is essentially the link between the litigant and the highest court of the country.
After fulfilling an eligibility criteria and clearing a rather tough examination, an advocate is qualified to be an AoR.
Simply put, AORs are a pool of elite Delhi-based lawyers whose legal practice is mostly before the SC. They can appear before other courts too. The idea behind this practice is that a lawyer with special qualifications, picked by the Supreme Court itself, is equipped to appear for a litigant because it is a court of the last opportunity for the litigant.
How does one become an AoR?
The Supreme Court Rules, 2013 prescribe eligibility criteria for an AoR.
While an advocate has to clear an examination set by the Court itself, the advocate has to meet specific criteria to be eligible to appear for the exam. The advocate must train with a court approved AoR for at least one year to take up the exam. She must also have at least four years of practice before starting the training itself.
An advocate needs to score at least 60% i.e. a minimum of 240 marks out of 400 with at least 50% in each subject in a three-hour exam. The subjects include Practice and Procedure, Drafting, Professional Ethics and Leading Cases. Approximately 200-250 lawyers clear the exam to become AoRs.
An AoR must have an office in Delhi within a 16-kilometre radius of the SC. Additionally, she is required to give an undertaking to employ, within one month of being registered as an AoR, a registered clerk.
What are the rules governing the AoR system?
According to Section 30 of the Advocates Act, any lawyer enrolled with the Bar Council is entitled to practice law before any Court or tribunal in the country. However, the provision also categorically states that “nothing in the provision shall be deemed to affect the power of the Supreme Court to make rules under Article 145 of the Constitution.”
Under Article 145 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court is empowered to make rules and regulate its own procedure for hearing cases.
The AoR system is broadly based on the British practice of barristers and solicitors. While barristers wear the black gown and wig and argue cases, solicitors take up cases from clients. In the Federal Court, the colonial predecessor of the Supreme Court, “agents” would take up cases while barristers would argue. In High Courts, the arguing counsels were referred to as pleaders. Senior advocates in India are designated by the Court and wear a distinct gown. Like barristers, they cannot solicit clients and are only briefed by other lawyers, say for example, an AoR.
The Supreme Court’s website on the history of the Court states that the inaugural proceedings of the SC was done after “taking care to ensure that the Rules of the Supreme Court were published and the names of all the Advocates and agents of the Federal Court were brought on the rolls of the Supreme Court.”
Source: The Indian Express
Govt emphasising to enhance the use of Hindi in legal education and proceedings: Kiren Rijiju
The Government is emphasising to promote and enhance the use of Hindi and other regional languages in Legal Education and to carry out the legal proceedings of the Supreme Court, High Courts and the other judicial wings, Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju has said.
We are digitising 65000 words Legal glossary and make them available to public and creating an online platform to crowd–sourcing of the coining of legal terminology for Indian Languages, Rijiju said in a written reply in Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, on December 9.
Further, this Ministry is in the process to Identify frequently used words in the legal documents and creating a transitive vocabulary/common core vocabulary by coining words from common roots which would be adaptable by all the Indian languages so that the translation of legal documents from one Indian language to another Indian language would be easier, he said.
According to Rijiju, the Ministry of Law and Justice is planning to convene a meeting of Vice Chancellors of Law Universities, representatives of Bar and Judiciary to prepare Ten Year Perspective action Plan for Promotion of Indian Languages in Courts and Legal Education.
Further, a committee under chairmanship of Hon’ble (Retd.) Chief Justice of India Sh. Bobde has been constituted by the BCI to recommend measures to enhance the use of Hindi and other Regional languages in Legal Education.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has informed that enabling Constitutional and Legal provisions in this regard are already in place, the minister said.
As per Article 348 of the Constitution and Section 7 of the Official Language Act, 1963 there are provisions of optional use of Hindi and other (Languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution) in the proceedings and judgments etc. of the courts. Under the aforementioned provisions, optional use of Hindi in the proceedings of High Courts of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar was authorised in the year 1950, 1969, 1971 and 1972 respectively.
New education policy also emphasises the need for promoting Hindi and other regional languages in Legal and other technical education.
The National Education Policy, 2020 in its para 20.4 stated that “Legal education needs to be competitive globally, adopting best practices and embracing new technologies for wider access to and timely delivery of Justice. At the same time, it must be informed and illuminated with Constitutional values of Justice -Social, Economic, and Political and directed towards National reconstruction through instrumentation of democracy, rule of law, and human rights. The curricula for legal studies must reflect socio-cultural contexts along with, in an evidence-based manner, the history of legal thinking, principles of justice, the practice of jurisprudence, and other related content appropriately and adequately. State institutions offering law education must consider offering bilingual education for future lawyers and judges in English and in the language of the State in which the Institution is situated”.
