SC decides to consider review plea on judgement debarring civil judges to compete for district judges

The Supreme Court has decided to examine in open court review petitions against its 2020 judgement which disallowed civil judges to compete for direct recruitment to the post of district judges.

A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Vineet Saran and S Ravindra Bhat would take up on Monday a batch of petitions by Raheemali M Nadaf and others from Karnataka,
Gaurav Pragyanan from Madhya Pradesh, Madhukar Singh from Uttar Pradesh and Manglesh Chaubey from Rajasthan.

The court had earlier issued notice to the registrar general of the Karnataka High Court, which conducts the selection process to the post of district judges through the Higher Judicial Service examinations and the Karnataka government, on the review petition filed by advocate by Sanjay M Nuli on behalf of Nadaf and others. Similar notices were issued to MP, UP and Rajasthan High Courts on other petitions.

The top court, in its judgement of February 19, 2020, had held the direct recruitment to the 25% post of district judges was exclusively meant for lawyers with seven years continuing practice and judicial officers cannot be allowed to compete for it.

The judgement by the apex court had all India ramifications, as it related to interpretation of Article 233 of the Constitution.

The review petition filed by civil judges from Karnataka contended that interpretation of the words "direct recruitment" must not only be confined to the members of the Bar and it must not prevent any in-service candidate, if he otherwise fulfilled all the requirements.

"Prohibiting a civil judge from being appointed as a district judge through direct recruitment is against the principle of equality," the petitioners maintained.

The petitioners, who had gained cumulative experience of more than seven years of practice before their selection as civil judge, contended that the apex court's finding that the aspirants for district judges post must be in practice as advocates on cut-off was erroneous also for being detrimental to those who joined non-litigation field of law.

The petitioners said they successfully cleared written and Viva Voce examinations on August 22, 2019 but could not be appointed to the post of district judges due to interim orders issued by the top court on May 10 and July 19, 2019.

In their plea, they said their selection must be saved and the matter should be examined by a Constitution bench of five judges.