Judiciary: India

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The selection of district judges

From the archives of The Times of India 2010

Dist judges’ merit quota down 15%

Most Posts To Be Filled On Seniority

Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN

New Delhi: The merit-based selection window to fill posts of district judges, who are key to the functioning and efficiency of the lower judiciary, will shrink by a huge 15% margin from 2011, the Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday. The large number of vacancies in the posts of district judges, who head the functioning of subordinate courts in the concerned district subordinate judiciary, weighed on the mind of the apex court and it ordered that the merit quota be reduced from 25% to 10% from January 1, 2011.

In 2002, the SC had ordered that of the total vacancies in district judges posts, 50% would be filled by senioritycum-merit from among the senior civil judges while another 25% would be filled by a limited departmental competitive examination to fasttrack promotion for the meritorious among senior civil judges. The rest 25% were filled through direct recruitment from the Bar.

But, the large number of vacancies — in some states more than 50 accumulated over the years under the 25% competition examination quota — made a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan to wear their thinking caps. On one hand, amicus curiae and senior advocate Vijay Hansaria reeled out statistics about the large number of vacancies in the posts of district judges and the mounting pendency of cases, while on the other major high courts — Bombay, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa — opposed any reduction in the 25% merit-quota in recruitment.

Even those states where the HCs were opposed to reduction in the merit quota, there were a large number of vacancies in district judges posts. However, the court did not interfere with the ongoing process for selection of district judges under the 25% quota. But, what it ordered was that from January 2011, the quota would be reduced from 25% to 10% and if still posts remained vacant, they would be filled through regular promotions.

This means, the quota for selecting district judges through regular promotion would now swell from 50% to 65% of the total vacancy.