Senior advocate MN Krishnamani defeated senior advocate Rupinder Singh Suri by 136 votes to be elected the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) until May 2013 in yesterday’s first-of-its-kind SCBA members-only poll, in which 1340 advocates voted. 547 members voted with Krishnamani.

Senior advocate Rajiv Dutta, also an incumbent for the post, won 200 votes.

Senior advocate Vasdev Kailash was elected the vice-president leaving behind seven other candidates, and advocate Pareena Swarup was elected the secretary to the body, out of 13 incumbents for the post.

For the first time, only advocates who had appeared at least 50 times before the SC and had not voted in the elections of any other bar association in the country were allowed to vote in the SCBA elections.

Votes were casted from 9 am until 4:30 pm yesterday electronically.

158 Supreme Court lawyers were vying for 21 posts in the SCBA executive committee, relying on 1372 expected votes according to the eligible voters’ list released for the SCBA elections this time.

The other new office bearers include: Advocate Sandeep Singh as assistant secretary, advocate VK Biju as treasurer, and advocate Neeraj Kumar Sharma as assistant treasurer.

Eleven members contested for the post of senior executive members, while senior advocates Anoop George Chaudhari, K Radhakrishnan, SB upadhyay, Pallav Shishodia, Brijendar chahr and Bhim Singh won.

Advocates Bina Madhavan, C. S. Ashri, Asha G. Nair, Pijush Kanti Roy, Vikrant Yadav, Vikas Bansal, Devashish Bharuka, Meenesh Kumar Dubey and Aftab Ali Khan were elected as executive members out of the 53 who contested.

Outgoing SCBA president PH Parekh did not run for the SCBA offices again this time. Senior advocates Adish Aggarwala, Ram Jethmalani and PK Jain who had also filed their nominations for the post had withdrawn their candidature last week.