Who pioneered high fee demand by successful lawyers?

Who started the trend of senior advocates demanding very high fees for appearing for litigants in Supreme Court?

Senior advocates A M Singhvi and Vikas Singh on Friday, during banter in video-conferencing platform for a vacation bench in Supreme Court, revealed that it was former law minister Shanti Bhushan who started the trend of charging high fees for single appearance in cases before the apex court.

Singhvi, one of the top lawyers of the country commanding fees that could be matched by few at present, said finding such high charges awkward, senior advocate Murli Bhandare, who held two terms as president of Supreme Court Bar Association, had proposed a resolution capping the legal fees to be charged by senior advocates.


“But, Shanti Bhushan tore that resolution and threw it in the dustbin and asked how SCBA could implement its resolution limiting the fees of senior advocates,” Singhvi said. Singh agreed with Singhvi that Bhushan was the pioneer in charging high fees. At present many senior advocates command a fee in excess of Rs10 lakh for arguing miscellaneous matters before the SC, which generally does not last more than 10 minutes.

The banter started with SCBA president Vikas Singh jokingly inquiring from solicitor general Tushar Mehta as to who is earning more, he or attorney general K K Venugopal. When SG said that he could not disclose the earnings of the AG, Singh said that “the cat is out of the bag”. SG immediately said that Venugopal had been charging high fees even before he became an AG. “AG’s income is definitely much more than mine,” he said.

In his characteristic deftness, SG in lighter vein said Vikas Singh as SCBA president should pass a resolution similar to the one attempted by Bhandare. “You pass the resolution and together we will take it to Singhvi,” he said. A smiling Singhvi was saved from reacting as the bench of Justices Vineet Saran and B R Gavai assembled. The bench disarmed them by saying “we have been at the bar before becoming judges. We know how lawyers exchange naughty gossips”