Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal was on Thursday elected the new president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).
Sibal secured 1,070 votes and defeated nearest rival Senior Counsel Pradeep Rai who got 693 votes.
Sibal last served as the president of SCBA in 2001-02. He has served twice before that as well - in 1995–1996, 1997–1998.
While the counting is still underway, Sibal has pulled ahead of the pack.
Below are the votes secured by the six candidates who contested for the post of the president.
Kapil Sibal - 1,070;
Pradeep Kumar Rai - 693;
Adish Aggarwala - 309;
Priya Hingorani - 165;
Neeraj Srivastava - 12;
Tripurari Ray - 34
Advocate Rachana Srivastava was elected Vice President. She secured 817 votes and defeated nearest rival Sukumar Pattjoshi who secured 791 votes.
Advocate Vikrant Yadav was elected Secretary while Dr. Sandeep Singh was elected Joint Secretary.
Sasmita Tripathy was elected the new Treasurer and Susheel Kumar Tomar the Joint Treasurer.
In an interview to Bar & Bench, Sibal said,
"Lawyers are meant to uphold the rule of law. The purpose of the lawyer is to protect the Constitution.... So if you divide the Bar based on political leanings, actually you are not fulfilling your duty as a lawyer. You may have a personal political philosophy, but that has nothing to do with your duty as a lawyer. I used to be with a political party, but we never espoused its cause in court."
Follow our coverage of this year's SCBA presidential debate here.
Read interview of Priya Hingorani here.
Read interview of Kapil Sibal here.
Read interview of Adish Aggarwala here.
[Read results circular]