On chamber sharing row, Justice Chandrachud speaks about his 120 sq ft chamber

New Delhi, July 26: Supreme Court judge Justice D Y Chandrachud on Monday recalled he had a 120 sq ft chamber in Mumbai when he was an Additional Solicitor General, after several lawyers raised grievances against twin-sharing allotment of chambers at the Supreme Court premises, news agency PTI reported.

Justice Chandrachud reminisced about the small size of the chamber in Mumbai from where he used to function, as a bench headed by him permitted the advocates, who are against allotment of lawyers' chambers at the Supreme Court premises here on a twin-sharing basis, to submit a representation before a judges' committee which is overseeing the process. The advocates have submitted that the chamber rooms are too small to be shared.

The bench observed that a committee presided by the senior-most judge of the court is overseeing the allotment of chambers and if there is some grievance of any segment of the Bar, they can make a representation to the panel.

The bench also comprising A S Bopanna said the moment one says single allotment, half of the lawyers will get allotment, and half of them go out.

"Frankly saying, anything we do is always going to hurt a segment of the Bar." Justice Chandrachud observed that there are lawyers, who have been given allotment after 40 years, and also those who are waiting for a long period.

"As an Additional Solicitor General, I had a chamber of 120 square feet. That was Mumbai," Justice Chandrachud recalled.

The counsel appearing for the petitioners said the chamber to be allotted to the lawyers is too small to be shared.

The top court told the petitioners to submit a representation to the committee.

"We accordingly permit the petitioners and any of the other parties, who are before the court, to submit a written representation before the committee," the bench said and posted the matter after two weeks.
Recently, the Supreme Court's administrative branch has come out with a list of 468 lawyers who would be allotted chambers on a twin-sharing basis.

Last week, when a petition concerning the allotment of chambers to lawyers was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana, the CJI observed, "We used to stand under the tree. You are fortunate to get chambers." Recalling his days as a lawyer, the CJI had said that getting a place for practicing advocacy is a "big favour".

"I can tell you, nowhere in the country, except Delhi, you get chambers," Justice Ramana had observed.