Judicial Services| Plea To Increase Quota For LDCE & Reduce Eligibility Years : Supreme Court Refers To 3-Judge Bench

Last week, the Supreme Court directed a batch of applications seeking, inter alia, an enhancement of the number of seats reserved for promotion to higher judicial services through a limited departmental competitive examination (LDCE), and the reduction in the requirement of 10 years minimum qualifying service to seven years for successful LDCE candidates. A division bench comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and M.M. Sundresh was hearing a writ petition pertaining to the members of the subordinate judiciary, which has already travelled through several rounds of litigation before the apex court and resulted in the issuance of a spate of directions for the betterment of the service conditions of judicial officers across the country. Noting that earlier orders passed in 2002 and 2010 would have to be ‘revisited’ in order to decide the question of modifying the proportion of reserved seats for LDCE candidates and their eligibility requirement, the bench directed the matter to be placed before a combination of three judges. The order accordingly stated, “It will be appropriate that these applications are heard by a bench having a strength of three Judges. The Registry is directed to place these matters before Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India for obtaining appropriate orders. It is informed that the issue involved in [the applications] is interdependent, it will, therefore, be appropriate that these matters be heard together. The Registry is, therefore, directed to place the matter before Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India so as to club these matters and place before the appropriate Bench.” Background In 2002, the top court, on the strength of the recommendations made by the Shetty Commission, had bifurcated the process of appointment to the higher judicial services by promotion into two distinct and parallel processes. Earlier, 75 per cent of all such appointments were made based on a calculus of merit and seniority. However, to incentivise relatively junior officers in the senior division to participate in the process, a bench headed by Justice B.N. Kirpal issued a slew of directions allowing promotion strictly on the basis of merit as determined in a limited departmental competitive examination. Therefore, after 2002, 50 per cent of the posts in the higher judicial services’ cadre were filled taking into account both merit and seniority, 25 per cent based on the LDCE scores of senior civil judges, and 25 per cent through direct recruitment from the bar. Subsequently, in 2010, the Supreme Court directed a reduction in the proportion of seats reserved for successful LDCE candidates from 25 per cent to 10 per cent since a large share of the reserved posts remained unfilled in many high courts owing to a lack of eligible candidates. The effect of this order was that after 2010, 25 per cent of seats came to be earmarked for direct recruitment, 65 per cent for officers selected through the regular merit-cum-seniority promotion process, and only 10 per cent reserved for officers who had qualified service of five years as senior civil judges and secured the requisite marks in the limited departmental examination. Another significant development took place in 2022 when the eligibility requirement for recruitment to the Delhi Higher Judicial Services in the LDCE quota was called into question. It was argued that since a judicial officer, even in the normal course, would get promoted to the higher judiciary in Delhi within 10 years, it would be prudent to do away with the prerequisite of having served as a senior civil judge for five years, since it effectively mandated a cumulative service period of a decade, with the first five years in the position of a junior civil judge. This proposal was supported by the Delhi High Court itself, which had, as early as 2008, deemed it appropriate in a full court meeting. Accordingly, the requirement of 10 years minimum qualifying service was reduced to seven years vis-à-vis the Delhi Higher Judicial Services. Case Title All India Judges Association & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. | Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1022 of 1989

Judicial Services| Plea To Increase Quota For LDCE & Reduce Eligibility Years : Supreme Court Refers To 3-Judge Bench

Awstika Das

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