Senior advocate Kapil Sibal leading in SCBA elections for post of president

New Delhi: The latest counting in the Supreme Court Bar Association elections indicate that senior advocate Kapil Sibal is leading against his closest rivals – senior advocates Pradeep Rai and Adish Aggarwala.

At the end of 11 rounds of counting, Sibal had 502 votes in his favour, while Rai and Aggarwala were trailing with 349 and 156 votes.

In total, there will be around 24 rounds of counting before the final winner is declared

The SCBA elections were held today in the national capital and around 2,400 lawyers cast their vote on Thursday to elect a new president, vice president, members of the executive committee for the SCBA.

Sibal is contesting the bar elections after two decades. Sibal has been the president of the SCBA three times earlier during 1995-96, 1997-98 and 2000-2001.

Rai has been the vice president of the SCBA earlier and it is his first effort to bag the top post of the SCBA. Aggarwala, Rai and Priya Hingorani

In total, six candidates are contesting the SCBA election for the post of president. There are four senior advocates – Sibal, Aggarwala, Rai and Priya Hingorani. Besides them, advocates Neeraj Srivastava and Tripurari Ray are in the fray.

The Supreme Court recently had directed to implement 33 percent reservation for women for the post of executive committee.

Aggarwala, who is the incumbent president, had recently courted controversy by writing a letter to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) seeking a suo motu review of the Constitutional Bench verdict in the Electoral Bonds Scheme case verdict.

Aggarwala, in his letter to the Chief Justice of India, said that disclosing the names of corporate donors and donations made by them will open them to victimisation. Aggarwala last year also stirred a controversy by writing to the Chief Justice of India asking for suo motu action against politically motivated farmers’ agitation.