The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Delhi High Court to revisit the cases of lawyers whose applications for senior designation were either rejected or deferred during the 2024 selection process.

A bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan passed the order while hearing a plea filed by Advocate Raman Gandhi. The petition had challenged the Delhi High Court's full court decision in November 2024, which conferred senior designation on only 70 out of 302 interviewed candidates.

Notably, the applications of 67 candidates had been deferred.

The Supreme Court instructed that both deferred and rejected applications be reconsidered in accordance with the rules framed in 2024. It further directed the Registrar General of the Delhi High Court to initiate steps for reconstituting the Permanent Committee for Senior Designations.

“The applications of the deferred and rejected applicants shall be placed before the Committee and processed as per the 2024 rules. This process should be undertaken expeditiously,” the bench stated.

The designations made in November 2024 had sparked controversy after Senior Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog, a member of the Permanent Committee, resigned citing procedural irregularities. He claimed the final list had been prepared without his consent.

As per the 2017 Supreme Court judgment in Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India, the Permanent Committee is responsible for shortlisting candidates for senior designation. The shortlisted names are then forwarded to the full court for final approval.

The apex court had earlier, on February 17, issued a notice on the plea challenging the designation process and sought a response from the Registrar General of the Delhi High Court. It had also called for a response from Sudhir Nandrajog, who subsequently submitted his reply in a sealed cover.

During the hearing, the bench questioned the urgency with which the designations were finalized last year, observing, “What is the tearing hurry for designation? If we go into how the process was done, it will not meet any ends.”