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Gopal Jha v. The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India (and connected writ petitions)

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2018 INSC 998Decided 25 Oct 2018
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 745 of 2018
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

Gopal Jha and a dozen other practising advocates, some Advocates-on-Record (AOR), some senior advocates, some neither, filed writ petitions against the Supreme Court itself, challenging the eligibility criteria and "block period" (the window of past filings/appearances) fixed by the Court's own Chamber Allotment Rules for allotting lawyers' chambers within the Supreme Court compound. Their grievances ranged from wanting the block period extended further back in time, to the calendar year being measured differently, to a direct constitutional challenge against Rule 3's requirement that an applicant be a member of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) rather than just the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA).

Decision Breakdown

The Court accepted several administrative compromises proposed by the Attorney General and the SCBA President, including shifting the block period from October 2013 to September 2018 (rejecting a petitioner's proposal to stretch it back to 2004, since that could let inactive advocates qualify) and directing that chamber-allotment notices be issued at least once every three years instead of an unpredictable gap. On the constitutional challenge, the Court held that Rule 3's SCBA-membership requirement was not arbitrary or discriminatory, noting that SCAORA's own rules already require AOR members to first be SCBA members, so the petitioners' argument was self-defeating; it also reaffirmed its own earlier precedent (Vinay Balachandra Joshi) that allotment of a chamber is a discretionary facility extended by the Court, not a fundamental or legal right. On the residency requirement (confined to Delhi/New Delhi), the Court declined to strike it down itself but asked the Judges' Allotment Committee to reconsider extending it to nearby NCR areas given how the city's suburbs have grown. All the writ petitions, including Gopal Jha's, were disposed of on these terms.

Lesson Learnt

Facilities a court extends to lawyers practising before it, like office space within court premises, are a matter of the court's own administrative discretion, not an enforceable legal or fundamental right, so challenges to such internal rules succeed only if the rule itself is shown to be irrational or arbitrary, not merely inconvenient to some applicants.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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