The Delhi High Court has shut down a legal challenge seeking reservation of six seats in the Bar Council of Delhi elections for advocates with less than ten years of experience, ruling that granting such relief would produce an unconstitutional outcome, the complete reservation of every single elected post on the council. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia upheld the single judge's dismissal of the plea, delivering a ruling that draws a firm constitutional boundary around how far electoral reservation in professional bar bodies can lawfully extend.
The controversy was set in motion by Advocate Ramesh Chandra Singh, enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi in 2022, who contested the council's February 2026 elections and subsequently challenged the absence of reserved seats for junior lawyers. His arithmetic was straightforward: of the 23 elected seats on the BCD, 12 are statutorily reserved for advocates with over ten years of practice under Section 3(2)(b) of the Advocates Act, and 5 are reserved for women advocates pursuant to the Supreme Court's direction in Yogamaya MG v. Union of India. Singh argued that the remaining 6 seats should logically and constitutionally be reserved for advocates with under ten years of experience, and that denying them this reservation violated their right to equality under Article 14.
The single judge rejected this reasoning outright, holding that existing reservations for senior and women advocates created no corresponding vested right in favour of junior lawyers, a finding Singh then carried to the Division Bench.
Chief Justice Upadhyaya and Justice Gedela were unpersuaded by the appellant's constitutional arithmetic. The bench identified a fundamental structural flaw in Singh's argument: treating the residual 6 seats as automatically reserved for junior advocates would mean that every one of the 23 BCD seats was reserved for one category or another, a result that the Advocates Act neither contemplates nor permits. The Court was emphatic, "The 50% reservation for advocates with more than ten years of practice, as stipulated in Section 3(2)(b) of the Advocates Act, together with the 30% reservation for women advocates directed by the Supreme Court… must not be construed to imply that the remaining 20% positions are reserved for advocates with less than ten years of experience. Such an interpretation would lead to complete reservation for all posts, which is inconsistent with the provisions of the Advocates Act."
The bench further affirmed that no vested right to reservation exists merely because other categories have been accorded protected seats, a principle equally grounded in the framework of the Constitution. The appeal was accordingly dismissed.
Case Title: Ramesh Chandra Singh Vs. Bar Council of Delhi and Anr
Case No.: LPA 161/2026 & CM APPL. 19155/2026
Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, Hon'ble Mr. Justice Tejas Karia
Advocate for the Appellant: Appellant-in-person
Advocate for the Respondent: Adv. Preetpal Singh, Adv. Tanupreet Kaur, Adv. Medha Sharma, Adv. SiAdvan Kumar, Adv. Pooja, Adv. Gaurav
Read Judgment @Latestlaws.com
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