The Bar Council of Delhi (DBC) has elected advocate KK Manan as chairman and advocate Amit Sharma as vice chairman, both uncontested, to respectively replace advocates Ram Singh Chauhan and Rakesh Sherawat on Wednesday.
Newly and controversially appointed DBC secretary and former DBC vice chairman Vijay Sondhi resigned from the post and advocate Puneet Mittal assumed it in a unanimous decision of the executive members.
Sondhi’s appointment to secretary was contested by Tiwari and Chauhan for two months before it was finally accepted in July.
Manan confirmed that Ramesh Gupta, who was the only other candidate to have filed his nomination for the post of chairman earlier, eventually withdrew it.
It is understood that the DBC members were broadly in favour of voting in Manan even before Gupta had withdrawn.
Manan’s term will end in August 2015. He has been voted in as chairman of the DBC for the second time after his first term in 2007-08.
Chauhan was elected chairman in January and was the last of many chairman to be voted in since the DBC’s last general elections in December 2009. Chauhan resigned in June, on the brink of a no confidence motion, after a bitter battle for power at the DBC executive.