Supreme Court to examine video of DHCBA meet where women quota proposal was rejected

The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed that it wished to watch the video recording of the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) meet where a proposal to reserve DHCBA posts for women lawyers was rejected [Aditi Chaudhary v Bar Council of Delhi and ors].

The Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan explained that the Court would examine whether the proposal was rejected after due deliberations and discussions.

"Delhi's is among the leading bars in the country to understand Constitutional ethos. We are to see - they must have deliberated on that - how they discussed Constitutional scheme. That we will see ... You are the cream of legal luminaries and reflect cosmopolitan culture of the bar. We would like to see, did any of you even discuss the Constitutional ethos?" Justice Kant remarked.

The Court was hearing petitions for reservation of posts for women in the DHCBA, with some petitions seeking up to a 33 per cent quota for women in bar bodies across Delhi.

In September this year, the Court had urged the DHCBA to reserve 4 out of 10 posts in the Executive Committee (EC) of the bar body for women.

However, at a recent DHCBA general body meeting (GBM), the adoption of resolutions favouring the reservation of posts for women in its EC were rejected.

During today's Supreme Court hearing, Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora appeared for the petitioners and criticised the manner in which the reservation resolutions were rejected.

"It is really unfortunate what happened. Their (DHCBA) affidavit is totally negative and in brazen non compliance. They are (justifying) saying (it is) because campaigning has started," she submitted.

Justice Surya Kant in a lighter vein asked the senior counsel not to get emotionally charged.

Meanwhile, Arora's submissions were strongly opposed by the DHCBA's counsel, Senior Advocate Vijay Hansaria and DHCBA President, Mohit Mathur.

"Lordships' order was for us to have a general body meeting but using that they got all the (bar) elections (in Delhi) postponed!" Hansaria alleged

"You hijacked the whole executive committee meeting anyways, do not hijack me here now!" Arora retorted.

The Court eventually asked if the meeting was videographed and sought a copy of the recording.

"Display it here. We want to see the kind of deliberations and discussions (that took place at the meeting)," the Court said, while adjourning the matter till November 18 (Monday).

Elections for the Bar Council of Delhi and all bar associations in the national capital were earlier scheduled to be held on October 19. However, the Delhi High Court recently deferred the same till December 13 in view of the present litigation before the Supreme Court.