Former Union Law Minister and Senior Advocate Ram Jethmalani (pictured) has been elected as the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). Other office bearers who were elected include P.K. Jain, Vice-President; Sanjay Bansal, Secretary; Anil Hooda, Assistant Secretary; K.K. Mani, Treasurer and Priyanka Mathur, Assistant Treasurer. The SCBA elections were held on May 7. 2,136 members of SCBA voted out of the eligible 3,258 members.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, all the new office bearers agreed that the first and foremost job of the elected members is to clean the tarnished image of the SCBA and resurrect the confidence of the Apex Court’s association.

Ram Jethmalani spoke to Bar & Bench after his election victory. Here is the transcript of our conversation.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who voted for me and for having confidence in me. There are several material problems that have plagued the SCBA. We have called for a meeting on Monday where we will take up these issues including parking problems, chamber allocations, healthcare and family care for advocates, AoR vs. Non AoR etc.

One of the more important issues that has drawn attention is the appointment of judges. The Bar and Bench has to work together in the appointment of the Judges. The Bar has to advice the Bench during the selection of Judges. In America, one of the tenets of the American Bar Association is the “right and duty of the Bar Association to advice the Judiciary on judicial appointments”. There have been allegations of corruption not only in the lower courts but also in the Higher Courts.

Priyanka Mathur, sole lady advocate elected as the office bearer of SCBA said “there are several priority items that have been prepared for Monday morning’s executive committee meeting”. Specifically, I would be taking up women welfare initiatives and are looking to establish a crèche within the Supreme Court premises to help working mothers in the Supreme Court. She also said “I must thank all my male colleagues as they have been very supportive of women welfare issues”.

Anil Hooda, Assistant Secretary of the SCBA said “the elections were conducted smoothly without any interference ”. The Interim Management of the SCBA had appointed three returning officers under the Chairmanship Justice Ramamoorthy.

One would recall that the recent SCBA meetings were absolute chaos with the President requesting an orthopedic and a cardiac specialist to run the SCBA meetings. With a new elected team in place the SCBA members can look forward to change.