New Delhi: Meghalaya High Court has assured the Supreme Court that it will "reconsider" amendments that the Bar claims allow lawyers to be arbitrarily elevated as "senior advocates."

The assurance followed the top court's observations that it is "instances like these that bring the system of designating senior advocates into disrepute".

The tag is awarded only to a few advocates in the country based on their legal expertise, eminence in a particular field, conduct and minimum 10 years' practice.

These are the broad parameters fixed by all high courts and the Supreme Court to designate lawyers as "senior advocates". Such lawyers get preferential hearings over others and draw handsome court appearance fees.

The Meghalaya High Court Bar Association had moved the Supreme Court questioning the amendments brought in by the court in January last year. Under the amendment, an advocate-general of any state, as long as he himself is a senior advocate, and any senior advocate practising in any high court can propose the name of a lawyer from any court in the country as a senior in Meghalaya High Court.

"Even at first blush, the guidelines have been couched, by the amendments, in too wide terms for acceptance. The power of designating any person as a senior advocate is always vested in the full court either of the Supreme Court or of any high court...it is instances like these that bring the system of designation of senior advocates into disrepute...beyond the above, we do not consider it necessary to say anything further...," a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi said in a recent judgement.

The Bar had objected to a clause in the amendment doing away with the basic requirement of five years' practice in any Meghalaya court to be designated a "senior advocate".

The Bar had also expressed reservations over the rules that allow an advocate practising in any court of the country to be designated a senior, and over any senior advocate in any high court being allowed to propose a colleague for the designation.

"As Shri P.S. Patwalia has submitted, the high court would be willing to reconsider the changes brought in by the amendments and remedy the situation by taking appropriate measures."