The Supreme Court Advocates of Record Association (SCAORA) elections held on Thursday brought in new leadership, with advocate Devvrat elected as president, Nikhil Jain as vice-president and Yogandhara Pawar Jha as secretary, while counting of other posts continued till late Friday evening.
SCAORA, founded four decades ago, has over 3,000 Advocates of Register (AoR) who enjoy the unique privilege of bringing and managing cases in the Supreme Court. The Society is credited with petitioning the Supreme Court in the early 1990s, which led to the landmark decision by which the Collegium system for judicial appointments was put in place.
Later, when Parliament amended the Constitution to pave the way for the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), the law was challenged by SCAORA, leading to the landmark 2015 ruling in which the Supreme Court struck down the NJAC law and revived the collegium system.
SCAORA’s legal activity has continued over the years. Recently, the association, under its president Vipin Nair, led the Supreme Court’s intervention on the summoning of senior lawyers for questioning by law enforcement agencies over their legal advice to their clients, a matter which the court took suo motu cognizance of and passed orders.
Recently, SCAORA also intervened in the issue of digital arrests, which the court took up suo motu, in favor of lawyers after a case came to light where a lawyer was duped by a digital arrest by online fraudsters.
In the elections held on Thursday, Devvrat defeated advocate Shivaji Jadhav in a direct contest, while Nikhil Jain swept the polls for the vice-presidential post by bagging nearly 1,000 votes out of the total 1,800 votes polled, registering a victory margin of 560 votes.
Yogandhara Pawar Jha got the secretary’s post in a four-way fight. Till the latest results came in, advocate Aljo Joseph was declared the winner of the treasurer’s post, followed by joint secretary Rohit K Singh and joint treasurer Pallavi Barua.
In the elections, 58 candidates competed for the positions of members of the administrative body and six executive members.
