Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi accused the SCBA of “crass commercialisation and periodic auctioning and re-auctioning”, on its decision to rename the Supreme Court’s “Dr LM Singhvi library” to “Dr Awadh Behari Rohatgi library” after senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, instead of Singhvi, ended up donating the money required for the library’s renovation this year. Bar & Bench reported that in addition to this accusation, Singhvi also alleged that the SCBA had possibly “squandered” the Rs 20 lakh he had donated for the library in 2009.

According to the B&B report, Singhvi said:

“In 2008 and 2009 they took Rs. 20 lacs from me. I gave it with happiness for the service of the Bar. I had also asked them to keep the money locked in corpus, so that it is not squandered for dinners and lunches. It was not done. Till 2014, nothing happened.”

The SCBA had in May asked for Rs 20 lakh from Singhi to renovate the library, but after he had allegedly qualified the donation with four conditions the association had decided to strip the library, named after his late father, of its title. Rohatgi has now donated Rs 25 lakh toward the library’s renovation and the library will be renamed after his late father.

SCBA president PH Parekh told B&B:

“[Singhvi’s] daily income is more than Rs. 20 lacs. If it was a lawyer who did not have money, we would not have asked for a single penny. It is when he set out those four conditions that we decided that enough was enough. […] It is not a question of payment but about the conditions he imposed. He said that he will pay Rs. 20 lacs but he will dictate the terms. We felt very hurt by that and did not like it. By imposing a condition that an inaugural ceremony should be held, he was trying to show his money power. So, the point is that we did not like the way in which he troubled us for a couple of months before agreeing to pay and then imposing those conditions.”