District Judge Appointments | Not Comparing Promotees With Direct Recruits, Says Supreme Court Reserving Judgment On Seniority Norms

The Supreme Court today reserved its judgment on the issue whether there should be a quota for the promotion of serving judicial officers as District Judge posts. The 5-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, K Vinod Chandran and Joymalya Bagchi is considering whether to lay down uniform pan-India guidelines to determine the inter-se seniority in the judicial service. The Court is examining the issue of whether there should be a quota in the District Judge posts for the promotion of judicial officers who joined the service at the entry level. This is to address the problem of career stagnation faced by officers who join the judicial service at entry-level posts. Another suggestion before the bench is that serving officers can be given weightage in tune with their experience.During the hearing today, Sr Advocate Gopal Shankaranarayanan appearing for few intervenors(Direct recruits) submitted that there was no empirical data on whether judges from the promotees category or direct recruits serve better in the position of district judge."If there is data that promotee judges serve better than direct recruits, or direct recruits serve better than promotee judges or 1:1 ratio, that data has not been found- if the data is not there, the link is not there. The link between the necessary ratio between direct recruits and promotees, the fact that one is better than the other in serving the ends of justice, that I cannot find." He then pointed out that none of the Supreme Court judges at present have come from district judiciary through the promotee category. At this juncture, Sr Advocate Vibha Makhija interjected to highlight that two of the Chief Justices of India in the past came through the service route. Notably, Justice KG Balakrishnan was amongst the two CJIs who started as a magistrate. The CJI weighed in to clarify that the purpose the present proceedings is not draw comparision of competency between the two categories but to find an ideal solutio for strengthening the Justice delivery mechanism. He said : "We are basically not going on a dispute between direct recruits and promotees, we are trying to find out what should be the best system in order to enhance the efficiency of adjudication of justice." Gopal S stressed that any guidelines which the Court plans on laying down should be based on enough data highlighting errors with the roster system at present. He added that having a separate quota for the promotees would be making a sub-cadre within the common cadre of district judges. Sr Advocate Jaideep Gupta also appearing for a few intervenors also emphasised that so far the roster system established with the All India Judges Association Case 2002 has worked well for appointments and no arguments have been raised with regard failure of the roster system. Citing the example of appointments in West Bengal, he pointed out that out of 59 posts of district judges, 27 are direct recruits and 32 are promotees; thus the promotees outnumber the direct recruits. Taking the example of West Bengal, he stressed that "if the seniority rule is correct at the base, then it will reflect at the level of the principal district judge also, subject only to performance." Justice Kant however pointed out that giving significance to the roster system at the entry level will overlook the potential candidates from the selection grade and supertime scale. Gupta also referred to the third suggestion given by the amicus : "(3) Alternatively, it is suggested that this Hon'ble Court may accept the recommendations of the Shetty Commission and grant weightage to Promotee District Judges for experience in terms of 1 year seniority for every 5 years of judicial service, subject to maximum of 3 years. It is further submitted that these additional years of seniority may be considered as service in the District Judge cadre." He pointed out the following issues in this regard : (1) the promotees will be given weightage based on their lower cadres, civil judge (Jr) or (Sr), which inevitably means that the longest serving district judge will always be senior to everybody else; (2) It will not only push down direct recruits, but also direct recruits who have been district civil judges in the past and have come in the direct recruit quota as per the recent decision in Rajnish KV v. K Deepa; (3) It will also push down the LDCE, because the LDCE will have necessarily have less experience as civil judge than those who enter the services and remain for longer. Sr Advocate Jayant Bhushan appeared for one of the intervenors who qualified as a direct recruit but previously served as a civil judge. Bhushan flagged concerns over having a quota for promotees from the civil judiciary. He also stressed that the quota would end, creating a sub-cadre, where the promotee candidates will be competing with fellow promotee candidates. In the alternative, he suggested that the quota benefit be extended to those direct...

District Judge Appointments | Not Comparing Promotees With Direct Recruits, Says Supreme Court Reserving Judgment On Seniority Norms

Anmol Kaur Bawa

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District Judge Appointments | Not Comparing Promotees With Direct Recruits, Says Supreme Court Reserving Judgment On Seniority Norms

Anmol Kaur Bawa

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