Rajasthan High Court Rejects Plea Challenging Age Criteria For Civil Judge Recruitment

The Rajasthan High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the Civil Judge recruitment process so far as the upper age limit to appear in the exam is concerned.

The challenge was thrown by an aspirant who had crossed the threshold age. It was his argument that the prescription was contrary to the Rajasthan Judicial Services Rules, 2010, whose object was to enable those candidates, who on account of non-holding of examination every year, became ineligible even though they would have been eligible, had the examination been held regularly.

A division bench led by Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava observed that the last recruitment was held in the year 2021 and the petitioner was eligible in that year. In 2022, the exams were not held. However, the petitioner would not have been eligible to appear in that year. Thus, it observed,

"Even if the examination would have been held in the very next following year i.e. in the year 2022, the petitioner would not have been eligible and he was barred by age even with relaxation. If that be so, it is difficult to comprehend that a candidate who was otherwise not eligible even in the year 2022, should be granted benefit of deemed age eligibility by invoking proviso (iv) to Rule 17 of the Rules of 2010."

Rule 17 prescribes 21 years as the lower age limit and 40 years (on the first day of January following the last date fixed for receipt of applications) as the upper age limit for direct recruitment to the cadre of Civil Judge. Proviso (iv) states that if a candidate would have been entitled in respect of his/her age to appear at the examination in any year in which no such examination was held, he/she shall be deemed to be entitled in respect of his/her age to appear at the next following examination.

The Court observed that the intention of proviso (iv) to Rule 17 was to relax the age limit for those who would have been eligible in a subsequent year had the exam been conducted in that year but became age barred due to gap in the recruitment process. Such individuals would be treated as eligible for the next examination. It held that deemed eligibility would be ascertained by examining whether the candidate would have been eligible with age relaxation under Rule 17 if the exam was held in the following year. If this ascertainment is positive, only then the relaxation under Rule 17 proviso (iv) would come into play for that candidate.