The Bar Council of (DBC), which yesterday appointed former vice chairman Vijay Sondhi as secretary, will meet on Monday to reconstitute its election committee, which will select a new chairman, vice chairman and secretary.

The committee’s term expired on 22 March, confirmed Sondhi, adding that DBC chairman RS Chauhan had dismantled the committee in the council’s second-to-last meeting, because it was wrongly continuing to sit beyond its expiry date. He told Legally India that the dismantling of the committee was disputed.

Sondhi was voted in by 17 out of the 25 elected members of the DBC yesterday, replacing outgoing secretary Murari Tiwari.

Sondhi said that no election had ever been held for the post of the DBC secretary, who is usually appointed and removed by resolution only, and that the DBC secretary, though without a fixed term, usually continued in the post for two years. Luthra & Luthra senior partner Sondhi had been vice chairman in March 2012, after running unopposed, as the only major law firm lawyer on the bar council.

Chauhan, who was elected as the council’s chairman in January, is the seventh or eighth bar council member in less than three years to hold the top post at the council.

It is probably the first time in the council’s history that the chairmanship had changed hands so many times, with the position usually having a term of at least two years. The DBC has had around three vice chairman in the last four years.