• The Supreme Court this week pulled up an Advocate-on-Record (AoR) for filing a frivolous case and dismissed the public interest litigation.
• The Court censured the lawyer that an AoR cannot merely be a “signing authority.”

About AoR

• Only an AoR can file cases before the Supreme Court.
• An AoR might engage other lawyers including senior counsels to argue before the Court but the AoR is essentially the link between the litigant and the highest court of the country.

Under Article 145 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court is empowered to make rules and regulate its own procedure for hearing cases.

• Simply put, AORs are a pool of elite Delhi-based lawyers whose legal practice is mostly before the SC.
  • They can appear before other courts too.
• The idea behind this practice is that a lawyer with special qualifications, picked by the Supreme Court itself, is equipped to appear for a litigant because it is a court of the last opportunity for the litigant.
• The Supreme Court Rules, 2013 prescribe eligibility criteria for an AoR.
  • The advocate must train with a court approved AoR for at least one year to take up the exam.
  • He/she must also have at least four years of practice before starting the training itself.
  • An advocate needs to score at least 60% i.e. a minimum of 240 marks out of 400 with at least 50% in each subject in a three-hour exam.
  • The subjects include Practice and Procedure, Drafting, Professional Ethics and Leading Cases.
  • An AoR must have an office in Delhi within a 16-kilometre radius of the SC.
  • Additionally, he/she is required to give an undertaking to employ, within one month of being registered as an AoR, a registered clerk.