After Rejanish KV V. K Deepa: Is it Time To Reconsider 25% LDCE Quota For Higher Judicial Service?

The constitutional significance of the judgment is therefore broader than the individual eligibility of Mr Rejanish. The direct-recruitment process is no longer confined to practising advocates. It is now a competitive avenue in which eligible advocates and eligible serving judicial officers may participate. That is the point at which the necessity of a separate LDCE channel becomes relevant.

If eligible serving judicial officers and advocates can compete against each other in the same direct-recruitment process, the continued necessity of a separate 25% Limited Departmental Competitive Examination (LDCE) channel for in-service judicial officers merits reconsideration.

Three-channel opportunities for in-service candidates post Rejanish

The Constitution Bench in Rejanish held, among other things, that a judicial officer who had completed seven years at the Bar before entering judicial service could participate in the direct-recruitment process which before was exclusively reserved to Bar members. More broadly, the judgment made an in-service candidate with seven years' combined experience as an advocate and judicial officer eligible for direct recruitment. The Rejanish judgment provided in-service candidates to get to the Higher Judicial Service through three broad channels:

1. 50% by regular promotion from Civil Judge (Senior Division), on the basis of merit-cum-seniority and suitability;

2. 25% by promotion through the LDCE from Civil Judge (Senior Division); and

3. 25% by direct recruitment.

This 50:25:25 structure has its origins in the Supreme Court's earlier directions in its May 20, 2025 judgment in All India Judges' Association v. Union of India; the Supreme Court directed all High Courts and State Governments to increase the LDCE quota for promotion from Civil Judge (Senior Division) to the Higher Judicial Service to 25%. It simultaneously reduced the qualifying service for the LDCE to three years as Civil Judge (Senior Division), with seven years' total judicial service including service as Civil Judge (Junior Division).

Thus, after that judgment, the structure was reaffirmed as:

50% regular promotion + 25% LDCE + 25% direct recruitment.

It's important to note that when All India Judges' Association judgment was rendered, the in-service candidates were held not eligible to participate in the 25% direct recruitment process.

But Rejanish, decided only a few months later, changed the fact of who may participate in the direct recruitment. The judicial officer now has two competitive routes to the District Judge cadre: LDCE and the common direct-recruitment examination, available to eligible advocates and eligible judicial officers, along with the regular promotion route. The advocates have only the direct recruitment examination route.

This arrangement is not, by itself, necessarily constitutionally impermissible. The more limited question is whether the continued existence of a separate LDCE channel remains justified once the Constitution Bench has opened the direct-recruitment process to eligible in-service judicial officers.

The original rationale for LDCE

There was a strong justification for the LDCE. LDCE is a system developed through judicial service recruitment rules. The Supreme Court repeatedly recognised that a competitive departmental examination can provide relatively junior judicial officers with an opportunity for accelerated promotion based on merit.

The May 2025 All India Judges' Association judgment expressly considered this rationale while restoring the LDCE quota to 25%. The Court noted that the object of the LDCE mechanism was to provide an incentive to judicial officers to compete and excel and thereby obtain quicker promotion. Thus, when in-service judicial officers were barred from participating in the direct recruitment exam (before the Rejanish judgment), LDCE provided them an avenue for accelerated promotion.

But the question is whether accelerated progression necessarily requires a separate 25% quota after Rejanish. A judicial officer would continue to have the regular promotion channel as well as LDCE. In addition, an eligible officer would now be able to compete in the common direct-recruitment examination.

The policy question is therefore whether the accelerated-promotion objective should continue to be implemented post Rejanish, as the Constitution Bench has now held that an eligible serving judicial officer can participate in the direct-recruitment process. A judicial officer who meets the Rejanish criteria may compete against advocates for the 25% direct-recruitment quota, while simultaneously retaining access to a separate 25% competitive promotional quota unavailable to advocates.

The Vacancy Problem

The history of the LDCE quota itself demonstrates that category-specific competitive recruitment can create difficulties when sufficient candidates do not qualify.

The May 2025 All India Judges' Association judgment highlighted that the earlier 25% LDCE system had resulted in substantial unfilled vacancies in several High Courts. In some States, a significant number of District Judge posts earmarked for LDCE remained vacant, prompting the Supreme Court in 2010 to reduce the quota from 25% to 10%. The May 2025 All India Judges' Association judgment subsequently restored the quota to 25%, while also directing that unfilled LDCE posts should be filled through regular promotion.

The Karnataka Example: 79 LDCE vacancies, but no comparable direct recruitment for years

The issue becomes particularly significant when examined against the recent recruitment pattern in Karnataka.

On 28 August 2026, the High Court of Karnataka notified 79 District Judge vacancies to be filled through the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination. The notification is confined to eligible serving Senior Civil Judges and provides for selection through a written examination and viva voce. It's important to note that the candidates eligible for LDCE will also be eligible for the direct recruitment exam.

The development assumes significance when contrasted with the position concerning direct recruitment. The last notification from High Court of Karnataka for direct recruitment to the post of District Judge was issued on 19 October 2023, when applications were invited for 14 vacant District Judge posts, including backlog vacancies and as a matter of fact, last time when a General Merit (Unreserved) candidate from the bar was eligible to apply for District Judge (Direct Recruitment) exam in Karnataka was way back in 2020. Where direct recruitment is not conducted for an extended period, the advocate has no alternative competitive route into the cadre. This creates an important question of equal opportunity in practice. If one recruitment channel is actively utilised while another channel remains dormant for a prolonged period, eligible meritorious members of the Bar may effectively be deprived of an opportunity to compete for appointment to the Higher Judicial Service during that period.

That concern assumes greater significance after Rejanish K.V. v. K. Deepa. The Constitution Bench has now recognised that eligible serving judicial officers can participate in direct recruitment along with advocates. Consequently, direct recruitment is no longer properly understood as a channel exclusively representing entry from the Bar. The Karnataka experience consequently strengthens the case for reconsidering whether the recruitment structure should continue to maintain a separate 25% LDCE channel while direct recruitment remains intermittent.

The Karnataka example therefore illustrates the practical necessity for a structural rearrangement in the recruitment process.

Article 14 And The Idea of Common Competition

The argument for reform is not an allegation that judicial officers enjoy an unconstitutional advantage but a need for common competitive opportunity.

The Constitution Bench in Rejanish itself sought to create what it described as a “level playing field” between advocates and in-service judicial officers. It prescribed the same minimum age of 35 years and required seven years' combined experience for an in-service candidate seeking direct recruitment.

The proposed restructuring would build upon that principle. Once both are permitted to compete for the same direct-recruitment vacancies, there is no need to have a separate exclusive competitive route to the same cadre exclusively for the judicial officer.

Way forward: The proposed two-channel model

Existing structure: 50% regular promotion + 25% LDCE + 25% direct recruitment

One possible view is to retain the existing 50% regular-promotion channel, abolish the separate 25% LDCE quota, and merge those vacancies into direct recruitment.

The proposed simpler two-channel structure:

50% regular promotion + 50% common competitive direct recruitment.

The 50% regular-promotion channel would remain untouched, ensuring that service-based career progression continues to form a substantial part of Higher Judicial Service recruitment.

Under the proposed system, the 50% direct-recruitment pool would be open to all eligible practising advocates and eligible serving judicial officers satisfying the eligibility age and practice criteria mandated in Rejanish.

Both categories would compete through the same examination, subject to the same eligibility standards and without automatic additional weightage merely because a candidate is already serving as a judicial officer. The direct-recruitment examination could include a common written examination, common viva voce, uniform eligibility conditions, and a common merit list for eligible advocates and eligible serving judicial officers.

Thus, the proposed system would retain both service-based progression through regular promotion and competitive progression through a single direct recruitment. In practice, this could improve vacancy utilisation as the High Courts would have the luxury to select from a wider pool of meritorious candidates from both the bar and judiciary. This model could consolidate the two examination-based routes into a single competitive process, potentially simplifying the recruitment architecture and reducing the administrative complexity associated with conducting separate examinations.