Elections for the posts of office bearers of the executive committee of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) are going to be held on 17 December 2014. In view of the importance of SCBA being the Bar Association of the Apex Court in India and the fact that SCBA represents the Bar in India in international conferences also, these elections are contested quite vigorously. In fact, many of the candidates had started campaigning for last about two months. Now, the list of the contestants for these elections has been declared by the election committee, after completion of the process of withdrawal of candidature.
This is the election season in the Supreme Court. In fact, if an unknown or not-so-well-known advocate greets you warmly (if you happen to be an advocate in the Supreme Court) and tries to engage in a discussion with you, you can be sure that the SCBA election would be round the corner. Most of the candidates contest these election so seriously that they spend more time for electioneering than for conducting their cases in the court. Some of the candidates for the post of President are known to spend millions of rupees for contesting these elections. They throw dinners and other parties to members of the SCBA, make tall promises, meet hundreds of advocates everyday (sometimes, a single candidate may request you for your support on 4-5 occasions on a single day!). So, you can easily guess as to how hotly contested the SCBA elections are. Notwithstanding the Clean India campaign launched by the Prime Minister, you can be sure that the Supreme Court premises are literally littered with candidates’ publicity material. Obviously, the stakes are quite high.
In all, 81 candidates are now contesting the elections for the posts of President, Vice President, Secretary, Joint Secretary, Treasurer, Joint Treasurer, Senior Members Executive, and Members Executive.
This year, as many as 8 candidates are contesting the elections for the post of President of SCBA. They are: Dr. Adish Aggarwala, Shri Izhar Ahmad, Shri Dushyant Dave, Shri Vijay Hansaria, Ms. Priya Hingorani, Shri Rakesh Kumar Khanna, Shri Hari Oum Sharma and Shri Rupinder Singh Suri.
For the post of Vice President of SCBA, four candidates are contesting the election. Their names are: Shri S.L. Gupta, Shri V. Shekhar, Shri Satya Ptakash Singh, and Shri Ajit Kumar Sinha.
For the post of Secretary, 6 candidates are trying their luck. They are: Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, Ms. Bina Madhavan, Shri Anil Kumar Hooda, Shri Anjani Kumar Jha, Shri Holiyappa Kanna Naik, and Shri Surendera Singh Nehra.
And, 5 candidates are contesting election for the post of Treasurer of SCBA. Their names are: Shri Umesh Babu Chaurasia, Shri Rajesh Pathak, Ms. Priyanka S. Mathur, Ms. Sunita Sharma, and Shri Varinder Kumar Sharma.
In addition to these candidates, 6 candidates are contesting election for the post of Joint Secretary; 6 candidates are contesting election for becoming Joint Treasurer; 9 candidates are in the run for 6 posts of Senior Members Executive; and, as many as 37 candidates are contesting for 9 posts of Members Executive.
This final list of the candidates was released by the election committee consisting of three senior advocates, namely, Shri Shekhar Naphade, Shri Altaf Ahmad and Shri Jitendra Mohan Sharma.
