District Judge Selection : SC Urges Madras HC To Expeditiously Decide Plea Against Upper Age Limit Reduction [Read Order]

The Supreme Court on Monday 'requested' the Madras High Court to expeditiously decide in a time-bound manner a plea challenging the reduction of upper-age limit for reserved categories for District Judge selection in Tamil Nadu.

A bench comprising Justices R Banumathi and A S Bopanna declined to intervene with the interim order of the Madras High Court which rejected the petitioner's interim prayer for allowing him to provisionally participate in the selection process.

The petitioner, N S Sivakumar, stated that the upper age limit for reserved categories (BC/ST/SC) for District Judge selection used to be 48 years till December 12, 2019. The notification issued on December 12 for filling up of 32 vacancies reduced the upper age limit for reserved categories as 45 years. This was done by amending the Rule 5 (3) of the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Service (Cadre and Recruitment) Rules, 2017.

The last date for submitting applications is January 31, 2020 and the exam is scheduled to take place in the first week of April 2020. In this backdrop, he had approached the Madras High Court, challenging the notification reducing upper age limit. When the High Court declined interim relief, he filed SLP in Supreme Court.

Disposing of the petition, the SC said :

"Though in a normal circumstance, we refrain from requesting the High Court to dispose of the matter in a time frame, in the instant case since the urgency is made out and the High Court itself has indicated the next date instead of allowing the matter to linger on with interim orders, we request the High Court to take up the matter and dispose of the same on the date on which the High Court has itself fixed the writ petition(s) for consideration or within a period of three weeks thereafter".

The SC also addressed the petitioner's apprehension about missing the last date by ordering as follows :

"Further the apprehension of learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner about the last date for application would stand addressed since if ultimately the petitioner succeeds, the High Court would also take note of granting the time to file/submit the application of the petitioner notwithstanding the fact that the last date for the same would have elapsed".

According to the petitioner, there are no valid reasons for reducing this upper age limit. He also stated that no recruitment of DJ had taken place by direct recruitment since 2013. This has resulted in depriving the right of several persons to seek appointment before the cut-off age.

He also pointed out that several other states, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab & Haryana etc follow the upper age limit of 48 years for reserved category.

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