“The news of passing the examination was more exhilarating than the news of topping the exam” AoR examination topper, Suvendu S Dash

In the Advocate on Record examination held in June last year, out of the 488 registered candidates a total of 107 have cleared the exam. The resulting pass percentage of roughly 22 percent was a marked improvement over the June 2012 pass percentage of 14.13 percent. Bar & Bench spoke to the exam topper, Suvendu S. Dash on preparing for the exam, his thoughts on the AoR system and much more..Suvendu S. Dash, who topped the June 2013 AoR exam, is a graduate of Madhusudan Law College, Uthkal University, Orissa. After completing his LL.B in 2007 he joined the Chambers of Dr. Akshaya Kumar Rath, who was later elevated as the Orissa High Court judge..In April 2009, he moved to Delhi and worked under AoR Ashok Panigrahi, who is also on the panel of State of Orissa. “Since October 2011 I have been practicing independently”, Suvendu says, “I have my own matters plus I also do a lot of freelance work. Many lawyers give me drafting work and ask me to brief seniors and to appear in matters before court, so that is how I keep myself engaged.”.“As soon as I completed my 5 years of court practice in 2012, I immediately took the AoR exam”, says Suvendu, who scored the highest marks in the AoR exam followed by Santhosh Krishnan who was placed second..Suvendu says, “I was very anxious about the outcome of the result. I had never thought I would make it at the top though I had put in my maximum efforts”..Preparation for the Exam.Suvendu says, “As far as preparation for the exam is concerned, it basically starts from the day you step into the corridors of the Supreme Court. You have to keep your eyes open and see what is happening around – starting from drafting to filing to briefing and getting the defects cured (pointed out by the registry).”.Suvendu emphasizes that the AoR exam mostly involves the practical aspects of the working of the Supreme Court and if you have been practicing in the Supreme Court, half the preparation is already done..As far as intensive academic preparation is concerned, Suvendy says, “One needs at least 2-3 months of rigorous preparation and that involves a careful study of the syllabus and going through the trend of the question papers of the last 5 years.”.Writing the papers.The first paper is the Practice and Procedures and the third paper is Professional Ethics – both deal with the procedures followed in the Supreme Court. Suvendu says that purely theoretical answers won’t impress the examiner as much as writing about the practical experiences in court. The examiners are Senior Advocates who are well acquainted with the procedure, he reasons, “They won’t be impressed by bookish answers, and they would want something extra from your experience which goes to show that you are familiar with the court rules and procedure.”.“The second paper is Drafting, which is nonetheless, a very important aspect of the entire Supreme Court practice because, in it we have to frame the questions of law. So the examiners expect you to draft and frame questions of law in the format and style followed and practiced in the Supreme Court.”.Preparatory Classes.The other important aspect in the preparation of AoR exam is the preparatory classes undertaken by the Senior Advocates. These classes are held either in the Supreme Court premises or in the plenary hall of the Indian law Institute..Suvendu says that the Senior Advocates provide a fair idea of the pattern of the questions. “So that really helps a lot and people need to be very careful about what the Seniors are indicating because usually the questions center around what they have taught in those classes. Four separate classes are taken and thankfully I never missed a single class”, says Suvendu..The Senior Advocates who took the classes included Raju Ramachandran, R Venkatramani, AK Ganguli and Indira Jaising..Talking about the lectures, Suvendu says, “The first lecture was very short where Raju Ramachandaran made it very clear that he wouldn’t be expecting answers in a typical bookish fashion and wouldn’t be expecting us to quote from the orders and the rules of the Supreme Court but he would want some pragmatic approach in the paper just to see whether the candidate is a Supreme Court practitioner or not and whether he is aware of all the procedures. The other three lectures were very comprehensive and whatever suggestions we got from rest of the three Senior Advocates, I think the questions basically centered around those only.”.Each year, the Supreme Court Advocate on Record Exam Committee, which is headed by three senior judges of the Supreme Court, appoints the examiners, who are usually designated Senior Advocates. This time Justices Lodha, Dattu and BS Chauhan were part of that Committee..Becoming an Advocate on Record.“Becoming an AoR is not everything in the Supreme Court but yes it is definitely a big step as it gives you some sort of recognition. People approach you for taking appropriate legal action in the Supreme Court and that becomes necessary because without becoming an AoR one can never make that initial impression which a lawyer is expected to make, because in other courts anybody can appear.”.“So it has been only confined to the Supreme Court where a separate set of advocates are specifically appointed to file matters so that the quality of the matter and the quality of drafting are always in check. This is definitely necessary for anyone who aspires to become a Supreme Court advocate in future but this is not the end in any aspect. This is simply a beginning and this beginning can start only after 5 years of hard work at Supreme Court”, says Suvendu..Challenge to AoR system.“On a personal note the AoR system is necessary because it is a sort of quality control. So in order to keep that check and in order to have proper quality which any Supreme Court and the practitioners must possess, I think it is quite necessary.”.Are AoR’s simply “lending” their names?.The Apex Court has many times come down heavily on the AoRs’ filing petitions without actually taking any responsibility for it or even appearing in the matter..Suvendu feels that being an AOR has its constraints also. Some AoRs might get a lot of matters while some may not. So the intake of matters, which come to, AoRs do not come uniformly to each and every person, which creates some kind of inconvenience. But he says, “We cannot generalize that all AoRs simply lend their names without taking responsibility. I, from my personal experience haven’t seen any of my senior colleagues sign the vakalatnama just for the heck of it to lend their names. They have a pivotal role and in fact even when I was non-AoR, and a matter came to me, the AoR we would go to would first scrutinize the matter from top to bottom. They too were present during the court hearing. So that sort of quality control is definitely necessary at the level of the Supreme Court and it won’t be such a great idea to do away with AOR system.”.On being a topper.“I don’t want to sound immodest but yes being around in the Supreme Court and observing things very closely gives a very practical approach and helps in the examination. As far as academic angle is concerned whoever gives a thorough preparation for 3 months with the minimum literature that is available for preparation stands a good chance.”.In the end Suvendu says, “The news of passing the examination was more exhilarating than the news of topping the exam because it was a long desire of mine to become an AoR.”