Supreme Court Directs MP High Court To Conclude Civil Judge Recruitment Process As Per 2023 Advertisement Soon

The Supreme Court today side aside the June 2024 order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which had directed re-computation of marks and weeding out of "ineligible candidates", who do not satisfy the Amended Recruitment Rules, from the main examination for Civil Judge entry-level posts. A bench comprising Justice PS Narasimha and Justice AS Chandurkar noted that no ineligible candidates were selected in either the preliminary or mains examination as the new recruitment criteria were followed. Consequently, the Court directed that the process of the Civil Judge, Junior Division(Entry Level) Recruitment 2023 shall be concluded at the earliest. "The appellants(High Court) shall conclude the recruitment process initiated pursuant to the advertisement dated 17.11.2023 at the earliest," the Court said.The bench passed the order in an appeal filed by the MP High Court, on its administrative side, against the High Court's judicial decision. The Court noted that the High Court exceeded its jurisdiction in the review order passed on June 13, 2024, directing for the re-computation. In fact, it also noted that the review petition was filed on apprehension of the students who had not even qualified the cut-off marks in the preliminary examination but alleged that the cut-off marks would be different if the new recruitment rules are to be followed. "From the aforesaid discussion, it can be seen that the contention raised by the respondents as regards re-computation of cut-off marks was only on the basis of their apprehension. The High Court found that excluding ineligible candidates would not result in reducing the cut-off marks and there was no likelihood of the respondents being considered for the final examination. The respondents could not furnish any explanation in that regard. Thus, the contention raised by the respondents based on a likelihood of reduction in the cut-off marks having been turned down, it was not open for the High Court, in exercise of review jurisdiction, to reconsider the very same contention and hold otherwise."The litigation began after the 1994 Rules were amended in June 2023, wherein only those candidates, who have at least 3 years of continuous practice or above 70% LLB marks( for General and OBC Categories), and 50 percent(for SC/ST candidates), in their first attempt without ATKT, were eligible to apply.In one set of writ petition(15150/2023), the Amended Recruitment Rules were challenged before the High Court.Meanwhile, the High Court issued advertisement for recruitment on November 17, 2023 which also contained certain posts from 2022. Subsequently, in another set of petition(1380/2023), the Supreme Court on December 15, 2023, provisionally allowed the candidates who were eligible prior to the amended rules but became ineligible subsequently to appear preliminary and written exams subject to the outcome of the first set of petition. The results of the preliminary exams were declared on March 10, 2024, based on unamended rules but subject to the outcome of the High Court's decision on vires of the rules. The main exams were conducted as per the amended rules. On April 1, 2024, the High Court upheld the validity of the amended rules in writ petition 15150, and the same was refused to be stayed by the Supreme Court on April 26, 2024.A writ petition was filed by two candidates before the High Court seeking to quash the results of preliminary exams, and to re-evaluate the marks as per the amended rules and again conduct mains exam. It was contended that ineligible candidates would be allowed to appear for the mains exam as they were provisionally allowed to appear for the exam pursuant to the Supreme Court's order. This was dismissed on May 7, 2024 on the grounds that since the candidates could not secure cut-off marks in the preliminary marks, they are not eligible. The High Court noted that the two candidates were only apprehensive that the cut-off will change, "It is only an apprehension of the petitioners that once the validity of the amended rules has been upheld by the Division Bench of this Court as well as by the Hon'ble Supreme Court then there will be a scrutiny of the candidates which will be done prior to preparation of the main results and all those candidates who are not having the benchmark in terms of the amended rules they will be thrown out of the final list."Against this order, a review was filed. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Amar Nath recalled its May 7 order saying that ineligible candidates were likely to secure appointment. The High Court also ordered the re-computation of cut-off marks by applying the ratio of 1:10 under Clause 7(2) of the Advertisement issued. The Court clarified that fresh call letters will be issued to those candidates who have secured adequate marks as per the recomputed cut-off after applying the new rules and weeding out the ineligible candidates. Those candidates who clear the prelims for the first time will be...

Supreme Court Directs MP High Court To Conclude Civil Judge Recruitment Process As Per 2023 Advertisement Soon

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

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