On August 21, 2026 the Supreme Court's three-judge Bench in the case of Bhumika Trust v. Union of India altered its direction of May 2025 which had required candidates to have three years' experience at the Bar before they could apply for the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division). The Court has now kept the principle of needing prior practical experience but has brought the requirement down to one year in respect of recruitments advertised from 1st April 2027. For the period up to 31st March 2027 law graduates will be allowed to apply without any prior practice and will be considered to have one year's practice. The candidates who are selected will then carry out one year of training at a State Judicial Academy and one year of structured law clerkship.

The fact of the change is not just that three years have been reduced to one; it is that the responsibility for producing a competent judge has now been transferred. Under the three-year rule, candidates were required to gain practical competence before joining the judiciary, having to go through a profession in which the early years are financially very insecure and structurally unequal. The new system transfers a major portion of that responsibility to the State by means of institutional training after selection of the candidates. This kind of change is to be welcomed. However, if the new training system is not properly funded and is not genuinely practical, the reform could end up merely shifting rather than eliminating the socioeconomic obstacle to a career in the judiciary.

The fact that early litigation involves high economic costs means that the problem cannot be ignored. A survey of 2,800 advocates who practice before eight High Courts, carried out by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, found that young lawyers earned very low amounts in their first years of practice. Although these figures were the respondents' own estimates and not audited income figures, they do show the financially insecure situation in which many young advocates start their careers.

If a lawyer already has a family law practice, strong professional contacts or money to fall back on spending a year or more building litigation experience might not be a problem. However, for a first-generation lawyer that same period of time can feel like a struggle just to survive for months or years before getting cases or a steady pay check. Because of this the ability to stay at the Bar often depends on having money to live on as much, as having legal ability. The gender dimension makes these concerns even stronger. A Supreme Court Bar Association survey of women legal professionals showed that 81.3 per cent of the women professionals said their jobs were harder than the jobs of the men. Also 83.1 per cent of those women legal professionals said they were the lawyers in their families. The survey does not prove that every woman or every first-generation lawyer struggles with money. However, the survey does show that the way people start and grow in the profession is not the same, for everyone.

The State has also recognised the vulnerability of junior advocates. The Department of Justice has referred to the Bar Council of Indias recommendation of monthly stipends of ₹20,000 for junior advocates in urban areas and ₹15,000, in rural areas. Department of Justice/BCI recommendation is not an enforceable minimum but its very formulation acknowledges a problem that judicial recruitment rules cannot ignore: surviving the first years of litigation is itself a challenge. This makes a one‑year practice requirement more complicated than it looks. A shorter period is clearly less burdensome than a three‑year period. It is still a condition that must be met in a profession where access to briefs, mentorship and income is unequal. Judicial recruitment should examine whether a candidate can grow into a judge. It should be careful, about checking whether a candidate can financially survive litigation.

The Court tried to deal with this issue by saying that people must show they actually practice law. This new yet brings up another problem. According to the system practice has to be proved with a Certificate of Practice. The idea makes sense: just being officially connected to a court group should not count as experience.

There exists between formal attachment and meaningful practice is hard to manage. An advocate first year may include drafting pleadings, preparing applications, researching issues, obtaining certified copies, helping a senior and making short mentions instead of running full trials or arguing matters regularly. These activities may become invisible if effective participation is measured by oral appearances even though these activities are central, to understanding litigation. Another lawyer may work every day inside a district court learning procedures drafting documents and preparing cases yet may not appear often. If the lawyer's experience is seen as worse simply because the experience produces recorded appearances the new requirement could recreate the same inequality the verification system wants to stop.

The majority's focus on training becomes especially important. The Law Commissions 117th Report, on Training of Judicial Officers examined whether intensive training could give officers preparation that ordinary Bar practice might not guarantee. Competing approaches show a disagreement about how judicial competence is built. The 2025 judgment said that courtroom exposure is very important before a person becomes a judge. The All India Judges Association, v. Union of India (2025) judgment made crystal clear and the concern is understandable. A judicial officer has public power from the moment the judicial officer sits on the bench and legal knowledge alone does not give a full picture of courtroom dynamics, procedural realities or what the consequences of judicial decisions can be.

The perspective is important because Justice K. Vinod Chandran's dissent takes this concern seriously .Justice K. Vinod Chandran maintained that the earlier three-year requirement should not have been diluted and emphasised the courtroom as an environment for developing the forensic and analytical skills required of a judge and it is rational to believe that Justice K. Vinod Chandran's position is important precisely because the argument, for training cannot simply assume that classroom instruction is equivalent to experience at the Bar. The answer to that concern need not be a long stretch of financially risky practice for every aspiring judge. The State can instead take on responsibility to ensure that the selected candidates receive real useful practice. Under the framework the candidates will do one year of judicial academy training then have a planned clerkship that includes six months, with the district judiciary and six months with a High Court judge.

This model might work better because Bar practice is not a training programme. What a young lawyer learns often depends on the senior they work with the cases they receive the court in which they practise and the opportunities available, to them. A designed institutional programme can make sure every selected candidate sees case records, evidence, procedure, judgment writing, court management and the real-world results of judicial orders. A designed institutional programme can also give the kind of supervision and evaluation that ordinary chamber practice cannot guarantee. The financial design of this model deserves close scrutiny. During the training and clerkship period candidates will receive a fixed emolument that equals half of the remuneration that a Judicial Magistrate First Class in the state receives. For candidates who have financial support two years at reduced remuneration may be manageable. For those candidates who found the years of litigation financially difficult however two additional years, at reduced remuneration could create another financial barrier.

The Courts decision to make the new plan go through a five-year empirical review is very important. The check needs to look at more than just if the plan is being used. It should also see if the plan makes judges if the checks are fair if the training gives real experience in court and if people from different money backgrounds can finish the process. A change in how judges are chosen should be judged by facts not by guesses, about whether three years or one year is better.

The Supreme Court has therefore done something but not complete. It has said that three years of working at the Bar cannot always be seen as the way to learn how to be good at the job. At the time the Court has kept a rule that still makes life harder for new lawyers and has set up a two-year training plan that pays less and might keep some people out. The bigger problem is not whether the Bar is important. The problem is who should pay for making sure judges are good, at their jobs.

Judicial recruitment should not turn into a test of how much someone can afford to go without pay. Real experience is important. If the State provides tough supervised training after selecting candidates' judicial maturity becomes something the system invests in of something only certain people can afford. Skills should be developed by organizations not bought by those who already have advantages.

Author is a 3rd year B.A., LL.B. student at Amity Law School, Amity University, Kolkata. Views are personal.