Judicial Service Examinations Should Be Conducted Every Year To Reduce Number Of Pending Cases: Madras High Court

“Before parting with this judgment, we suggest that judicial service examinations shall be conducted every year so as to ensure to minimize the pending litigations, as, of late, it is noticed that certain cases are pending for more than three decades in view of the fact that future vacancies are known on account of retirement of Judicial Officers,” the court said.

A division bench of Justice S Vaidyanathan and Justice K Rajasekar was hearing petitions against the Advertisement and Notification relating to the selection process of Civil Judge issued by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission.

One of the petitioners, Indulekha argued that though age relaxation was given for the category of Fresh Law Graduates, no concession was given in respect of year of completion of Law degree. She had thus contended that increase in upper age limit alone was not sufficient and the condition pertaining to year of completion (which was presently three years prior to the date of notification) be extended by another two years. She thus sought setting aside the relevant clause under the notification.

Suriyanarayanan, another petitioner, contended that though he completed Law Degree in the month of December 2019, he enrolled as an Advocate only in September 2020 owing to the pandemic and thus he was unable to apply for the Civil Judge Examination either under the head of Practicing Advocate (which required 3 years experience) or under the head of Fresh Law Graduate (which required applicants to have completed law degree 3 years prior to notification). He thus contended that his right to compete with other candidates cannot be curtailed for no fault of his and he cannot be made as a scapegoat due to the delay caused by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and thus sought for a direction allowing him to write the examination. Another petitioner Kesavalakshmi also had similar issues.

Another petitioner, Sathiyamoorthy contended that the age relaxation found in the notification was against the principle of social equity as no relaxation was provided for the persons belonging to the minorities such as SCs and STs. It was contended that when there is no prescription of upper age limit in the relevant Rules, the fixation of maximum age as 42 years for the minorities without segregating SC/STs as a separate category was highly unconstitutional and contrary to law.

On the other hand, on behalf of the High Court, it was submitted that it was the legitimate right of the authority to decide and the court, in exercise of judicial review, could not usurp that power. It was also submitted that relaxation of age and prescription of particular age could not be demanded as a matter of right.

The TNPSC argued that all processes relating to scrutiny of applications are over and if the recruitment process is stalled at this point, all its efforts will turn out to be a futile exercise and there would be no end to finalise the selection process.

The court noted that the principles governing a recruitment process with regard to determination of a cut-off are well settled and it is for the Authority to fix the cut-off date or age limit in accordance with the rules. The court, relying upon the judgment of the Apex Court in Rachna and others vs. Union of India and another held that unless the public policy is capricious and totally arbitrary, the Court cannot blindly stall the selection process.

“From the above judgment, it is very clear that unless the public policy is capricious and totally arbitrary, the Court cannot blindly stall the selection process, which is within the realm of the executive, as it would affect the smooth function of better administration. That apart, in Paragraph No.38 of the said judgment extracted below, the Apex Court distinctly and explicitly delineated that the consideration of concession was on account of Covid-19 pandemic and such relaxation cannot be demanded as a matter of right,” the court said.

Thus, the court noted that there was no infringement of fundamental rights or Statutory Rules which would warrant interference of the court. It added that if the plea of the petitioners was to be accepted, it would open a pandora box and other candidates would also start knocking the doors of the court which in turn would stall the selection process.

“In the absence of any arbitrariness, infringement and fickleness, the petitioners are not entitled to any relief and we do not want to bring the selection process to a standstill, in view of the fact that vacancies (almost 300) in the Subordinate Judiciary in the cadre of Civil Judges is a disturbing one, on account of which there is a deprivation of promotion to eligible Civil Judges as Sub-Judges and Sub-Judges to District Judges,” the court observed.

Observing that the petitioners cannot compel the Commission to fix the cut-off date and relax the age in a particular manner they want, the court dismissed the petition.

Case Title: K Indulekha v. The Chairman, TNPSC and others

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 223

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr.E.V.Chandru, Mr.S.P.Harikrishnan, Ms.D.Geetha, Mr.P.Vijendran

Counsel for the Respondents: Mr.R.Bharanidharan, Mr.B.Vijay