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Senior advocates can no longer orally mention cases in Supreme Court from today

A registry circular that takes effect on Monday bars senior counsel from mentioning matters before any bench and asks that younger lawyers be given the chance instead.

From the editorial desk · New DelhiPublished
The Supreme Court of India, New Delhi (file photo)
The Supreme Court of India, New Delhi (file photo)Photo: Pinakpani / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Key points

  1. From Monday, no senior counsel may make oral mentions before any Supreme Court bench.
  2. The circular says junior and young counsel should be encouraged to mention matters instead.
  3. It does not change the mentioning procedure set out in a November 2025 circular.

Senior advocates can no longer orally mention cases before any bench of the Supreme Court from Monday, when a registry circular issued last week comes into force.

The circular, dated 27 October and signed by three Registrars, says that with effect from 2 November “no Senior Counsel shall be permitted to make oral mentioning before any Court”. Mentioning is the morning practice in which a lawyer stands up at the start of the day to ask a bench for an urgent listing or early hearing.

The court wants the slot to go to younger members of the bar. Young and junior counsel, the circular says, “may, instead, be encouraged to make oral mentioning before the Courts.” Copies have gone to the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association to put up on their notice boards.

How mentioning works now

The new order does not change the procedure laid down in a registry circular of 29 November 2025, which had already kept senior counsel from mentioning and urged juniors to do it. Under that system, urgent categories such as regular and anticipatory bail, death penalty, habeas corpus and eviction or demolition cases are listed automatically within two working days of verification and cannot be mentioned merely to get a date. A lawyer seeking urgent interim relief must file a mentioning proforma and an urgency letter by 3 pm on the previous working day. The lists go to the Registrar (Judicial Listing), who takes the Chief Justice’s instructions.

The practice has swung back and forth. Former Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna stopped oral mentioning altogether and asked lawyers to send emails or letters. His successor, B R Gavai, brought it back after he was sworn in on 14 May 2025.

The documents