Vinod Kumar v. Lawyers Chambers Allotment Committee and Ors.

1. Allowed, subject'to alljust exceptions.

2. The applications are disposed of. W.P.(a 1246/2018 & CM No.5182/2018 W.P.(C) 1250/2018 & CM No.5192/2018

3. The petitioners have filed the present petitions, inter alia, impugning the minutes of the meeting of the Lawyers Chambers Allotnient Committee (respondent no.l) dated 05.09.2017 accepting the criteria adopted by the Sub-Committee for scrutinizing the applications (856 in number) for allotment of lawyers chambers at the Saket Court Complex.

4. At the outset, the learned counsel appearing for the respondent has contended that the process for allotment of chambers is now complete and the selected applicants have already been allotted the chambers at the Saket Court Complex.

5. The petitioners - who claim to be regularly practicing in South and South (East) District Courts at Saket Court Complex - had applied for allotment of Chamber in the year 2014: the petitioner in W.P.(C) 1250/2018 had applied on 28.08.2014 and the petitioner in W.P.(C) 1246/2018 had applied on 21.07.2014.

6. In terms of the relevant criteria adopted by the Sub-Committee, only the lawyers practicing in the Courts at Saket Court Complex were entitled to apply for allotment of a chamber at the said complex. In terms of the application form, the applicants were required to provide details of appearances in at least fifteen cases in South and South (East) District Courts in order to substantiate their claim ofpracticing in Courts at the Saket Court Complex. V,.

7. Since, in many cases, the names of the advocates were not mentioned in the order sheets, the Allotment Committee decided to also accept certified copies of the Vaklatnamas as evidence of the applicants having appeared in those cases. However, in many cases the Vaklatnamas were signed by multiple lawyers and, thus, the same were not sufficient to establish that the applicant (who was one of the signatories to Vaklatnama) was the main counsel in the matter.

8. In the aforesaid circumstances, it was decided that where appearances of the applicant lawyer are mentioned in the certified copies of the Court's order sheet/judgment, the same would be accepted. Similarly, where the certified copy of the petition/written statement was signed by an applicant lawyer, the same would be accepted as sufficient evidence of the applicant acting having acted in the matter. Further, where a Vaklatnama was signed by a lawyer alone (and not multiple lawyers), the same would be accepted as evidence ofhis engagement in the matter.

9. In the present cases, it is admitted that the said criteria is not satisfied by the documents provided by the petitioners. The petitioners have sought to establish their claim by other documents that were provided subsequently. However, the Allotment Committee has decided to consider only those documents that were provided with the application forms.

10. This Court finds no infirmity with the criteria adopted. It is also not disputed that the said criteria has been uniformly applied. Thus, in this view no interference with the allotment ofthe chambers is called for.

11. Having stated the above, it is also necessary to observe that the petitioners cannot be excluded from being considered for subsequent allotments. And, it would be apposite for the Allotment Committee to t -• V y clearly specifythe criteriato be adopted for allotment of chambers in future to obviate any challenge to the same at a later stage.

12. It is further clarified that the petitioners would not be precluded from applying for chambers as and when further allotment of chambers is contemplated in the future.

13. The present petitions are disposed ofwith the aforesaid observations.

VIBHU BAKHRU, J FEBRUARY 09, 2018 pkv