Bar Council, as the custodian of legal standards, must lead by example in upholding the principles of justice and constitutional fairness.
Published Dec 11, 2025 | 1:42 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 11, 2025 | 1:42 PM
Representational image. Credit: iStock
Synopsis: Supreme Court mandated 30% women’s reservation in all State Bar Council elections on Dec 4, 2025, deeming rules automatically amended. Four days later, it exempted six councils—including Andhra Pradesh—claiming their election processes had “commenced.” However, AP Bar Council had not yet issued the formal election notification, contradicting settled Supreme Court precedent that the process begins only upon publication of the schedule, raising serious questions of factual misrepresentation and intent to evade gender parity.
The recent intervention by the Supreme Court to mandate a 30% reservation for women in all State Bar Council elections has been hailed as a landmark step toward ensuring gender parity within India’s legal regulatory bodies.
However, the subsequent procedural twists, particularly concerning the Andhra Pradesh State Bar Council (AP S.B.C.), have ignited a fierce debate among advocates, raising uncomfortable questions about legal compliance, judicial discretion, and the potential intent to circumvent the progressive directive.
On December 4, 2025, the Honourable Supreme Court issued a categorical order directing all State Bar Councils to immediately provide a 30% reservation for women in the election of their members.
In a move that underscored the urgency and non-negotiable nature of the mandate, the Court took the extraordinary step of clarifying that the relevant rules and bye-laws governing these elections shall be deemed to have been amended forthwith to incorporate this provision.
This clarification itself is legally significant, bypassing the often-protracted process of regulatory amendment by the Bar Councils themselves and giving the order immediate, enforceable effect.
The legal landscape shifted just four days later. During a subsequent hearing on December 8, 2025, some State Bar Councils made submissions to the Supreme Court arguing that their election processes had already commenced, making it logistically impossible to implement the new reservation criteria at such a late stage.
In light of these representations, the Supreme Court, perhaps in an exercise of practical judicial restraint, passed a further order exempting six State Bar Councils—including Andhra Pradesh—from the earlier direction, specifically for the current election cycle.
The critical piece of this subsequent order is contained in Paragraph 4, where the Supreme Court recorded that, “in respect of four Bar Councils, elections are notified and as a consequence, the election process has commenced,” and included two additional Bar Councils (making a total of six) in the exemption. The AP S.B.C. was one of the bodies granted this reprieve, premised on the factual assertion that its election process had already begun.
The entire controversy pivots on a singular, fundamental question of electoral law: When does the “election process” legally commence?
The Bar Council, being a self-regulating body comprised exclusively of legal practitioners, should inherently possess an unambiguous understanding of this principle. Yet, the representation made before the apex court in relation to the AP S.B.C. appears to be in direct conflict with established judicial precedent and procedural reality.
As of the date of the Supreme Court’s order on December 8, 2025, it is a verifiable fact that the AP S.B.C. had not yet issued a formal “Election Notification” announcing the comprehensive schedule for the polls. The present Chairman and the incumbent members are now compelled to explain the precise context in which they successfully represented to the Supreme Court that the elections had been notified and the process had commenced.
The legal distinction lies starkly between preparatory steps and the formal commencement of the election. Is the process triggered by a directive to merely prepare and finalise a preliminary voters’ list, or does it begin only with the formal issuance of a notification that fixes the schedule, polling dates, and nomination procedures?
Directive to prepare a voters list or any other act prior to publication/announcement of the final schedule is universally understood to be a pre-electoral administrative function. It is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the election process to be deemed officially “set in motion” for the purpose of judicial non-interference.
The answer to this question has been definitively settled by the Supreme Court itself in matters concerning electoral procedure. In the seminal judgment of ShajiK.Josephv.V.VishwanathandOthers (a case concerning the Dental Council elections), and in various other rulings, the apex court has consistently held that the election process formally commences only from the date of the publication of the election programme or schedule. This formal notification is the trigger that sets the electoral machinery in motion and typically establishes the zone of non-interference by courts, safeguarding the smooth conduct of the poll.
Given this binding precedent, the only conceivable argument available to the AP S.B.C. would be that the preparatory directive to finalise the voters’ list itself constitutes the commencement of the election process. However, this interpretation fundamentally contravenes the spirit and letter of the law established by the Supreme Court. Preparing a voters’ list is a pre-electoral or any other Act prior to publication of notification is an administrative function, essential for any future poll, but not the legal point of commencement of election process.
The conclusion is thus inescapable: the representation made by or on behalf of the AP S.B.C. before the Supreme Court—that the election process had commenced in a manner that precluded the implementation of the reservation—may be factually and legally incorrect.
The timing and nature of the representation raise profound ethical and professional concerns. Was the inaccurate assertion of “commenced election process” merely a procedural error, or was it a calculated manoeuvre driven by an intent to avoid the mandatory 30% reservation for women advocates?
The Bar Council, as the custodian of legal standards and ethics for the state’s advocates, must lead by example in upholding the principles of justice and constitutional fairness. Women advocates are an integral and growing part of the judicial ecosystem. Their rightful demand for appropriate representation on the body that governs their profession is not a mere political request but a necessary step toward building an inclusive and representative legal system.
If the exemption was secured on a dubious factual premise, it undermines the sanctity of the submissions made before the highest court of the land and defeats the clear, progressive intent of the December 4 order. The present leadership of the AP S.B.C. has a duty to the legal fraternity and to the public to provide a transparent and satisfactory explanation for the representation that led to the state’s exemption. The commitment to gender equality in the Bar cannot be a matter of convenience; it must be a matter of foundational adherence to the rule of law.
(Author is a senior advocate. Opinions are personal)
