New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday deplored that despite having prescribed a time frame for recruitment of judicial officers only nine out of 25 states completed the induction of civil judges within the stipulated time.
The top court had mandated a time frame to be followed for filling up the vacancies in district and subordinate courts. The process was to commence on March 31 and end by October 31 of the same year. However, the schedule was moderated at the request of several high courts.
“The recruitment process must adhere to the timeline but if there is any special and unavoidable exigency, the stakeholders should be kept informed with due promptitude,” a bench comprising justices Hrishikesh Roy and Prashant Kumar Mishra said.
The top court made the observations in a judgement by which it upheld the rules stipulating the minimum qualifying marks in viva voce as part of the selection criteria for appointment of judicial officers in Bihar and Gujarat. “A report of the Supreme Court’s Centre for Research and Planning notes that despite the judgment in Malik Mazhar (supra) prescribing timelines for recruitment, only 9 out of 25 states completed the recruitment of Civil Judge (Judge Division), within the stipulated time frame. The report notes that the State of Bihar took 945 days to complete the recruitment process from the date of advertisement (March 9, 2020) to the date of final result (October 10, 2022),” it said.
The top court had in its judgement emphasised the importance of having a time schedule for conducting the judicial service examinations.
Referring to the facts of the instant case, the bench said “...for the Bihar selection process, the advertisement was issued in January, 2015; the final selection was made on May 17, 2016, and because of the need to do a few course corrections, the last candidate was called for the interview only in August, 2016.” Similarly, for the selection of civil judges in Gujarat, while the advertisement was issued in 2019, the selection process could be completed only in 2021, it said. To avoid the “meandering process noticed in the recruitment in the State of Bihar and to ensure more clarity and certainty with the process”, the bench declared that the processes such as those for moderation of marks should be preferably set out in the rules to ensure transparency and avoid dilemmas in the selection process.