Delhi Judicial Services Exam; Bar Association writes to Chief Justice

The President of Rohini Court Bar Association  has requested Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, through a letter, not to assign cases in which union government is one of the parties, to two sitting judges of the High Court, whose kith and kin have cleared the Judicial Services Examination. He states in his letter, “to maintain the faith and confidence in the judiciary, it is absolutely necessary that the two sitting HC judges, whose kin have been reported to have cleared the said examination, should not be assigned cases in which union government is one of the parties as these judges could be influenced by the union government, which is stated to have ordered an enquiry into the matter. Or if possible judges be posted out of Delhi so that they may not influence the independent enquiry into the scam “.

Inder Singh Saroha, the President of Rohini Court Bar Association wrote in his letter to Chief Justice, “This exam was conducted by Delhi HC and 80 posts were to be filled up as per the ad. However, to the utter surprise of most of the eligible participants, only 15 participants have been declared as qualified for the services, who are directly or indirectly related to the judges.”

A month ago, the Union Law Minister had also written to Chief Justice of Delhi High court on the same issue. He wrote that “the Department of Justice has received many grievances alleging corruption, favouritism and nepotism in the recently concluded Delhi Judicial Services Examination, 2014, the petitioners have alleged that the answer sheets were evaluated by those sitting judges whose sons/daughters/relatives took the exam. It has also been stated that the Delhi High Court failed to give satisfactory reply to their RTI query in this regard.”Live law had reported these irregularities last month. Senior Advocate Sri PrashantBhushan had also written to Chief Justice that “the facts and documents which show very startling information/data regarding the said result and also raise serious questions about the evaluation method/selection process being adopted for selecting the lower judicial officers in Delhi.”