High-profile lawyers in Delhi, which is the seat of the apex court and the high court, have a penchant for luxury writing instruments.

Financial Chronicle finds out that these legal eagles with means constitute around 60 per cent of the clientele of luxury pen retailers in the city.

Some of these avid collectors, such as advocate and Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi or advocate and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley or lawyer Ryan Karanjawala are not very keen to talk about their collection. While others, such as deputy solicitor general of India Mohan Parasaran or managing partner of Amarchand Mangaldas Shardul Shroff have no qualms in talking about th­eir passion.

They start with entry-level Mont Blanc, then move on to its limited editions and to Cartier, and then progress to more niche brands such as Montegrappa, Caran d’Ache, Onoto and Visconti.

The price starts from Rs 20,000 and can go up to even Rs 1 crore, for specially hand-crafted and bejewelled pens. Retailers of these luxury pens say that it may be prestige and power attached to their written words that they want to embellish with an expensive writing instrument.