Candidates For Main Judicial Exam To Be Selected From Prelims In 1: 10 Ratio Of Vacancies; SC Strikes Down Rule 5A Bihar Rules.

In a significant judgment, the Supreme Court struck down Rule 5A of the Bihar Civil Service(Judicial Branch)(Recruitment) Rules 1995, as per which only 10% of the candidates who appear in the preliminary examination will be selected for mains.

The Court found that this rule was contrary to the dictum in Malik Mazhar Sultan v UPPSC (2008) 17 SCC 703, which held that candidates should be selected for main judicial service examination after preliminary examination in the ratio 1 : 10 with respect to advertised vacancies.

The judgment was delivered in a writ petition filed before the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India by 13 contestants.

Based on the said rule, only 1843 candidates out of nearly 17000 contestants were called for main examination as against 349 advertised vacancies. Applying the dictum in Malik Mazhar, 3490 candidates ought to have been called.

The Division Bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Naveen Sinha found the Rule to be "clearly arbitrary" and that it "and violates the decision in Malik Mazhar Sultan"

"No useful purpose is going to be served by restricting the number of candidates for final written examination", said the Court.

The bench also noticed that no minimum qualifying marks was prescribed for the preliminary examination. However, for the already conducted examination, the Court held that it was not appropriate to fix the cut off mark at this stage.

So, the Court directed the stakeholders- State of Bihar, High Court of Patna as well as the Bihar Public Service Commission- to ensure that cut off marks are prescribed in future examinations.

Rule 5A was struck down, and the Public Service Commission was directed to hold the main examination within 6 weeks, after issuing call letters to candidates applying the ratio 1 : 10 with respect to vacancies.

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