The Madhya Pradesh High Court maintains three years of law practice or a score of 70% as the criterion for eligibility for state judicial services

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently upheld the rule that candidates in the field of legal services in the state must have at least three years of practical experience or 70 percent of their law degree.Devansh Kaushik vs. State of Madhya Pradesh and Anr).

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Vishal Mishra said the intent of the amended rule was quality oriented and it was the hope and desire of the Supreme Court to ensure that the best among the best are selected as judges.

“It is a pursuit of excellence. Excellence should always take precedence over mediocrity”, said the Court.

The Court further reasoned that the interest of the litigants approaching the courts for justice was far more important than the interest of the individuals.

“If the petitioners’ claims are accepted, it will only guarantee the maintenance of the status quo of a low standard that has existed for decades. For decades, a minimum qualification was sufficient. No attempts have been made to improve quality. It is the first time that the Supreme Court has attempted this. This is done in the greater interest of the litigants and society as a whole”, said the Court.

It further noted that the Supreme Court’s intention was to raise the bar and ensure that the best law graduates become judges.

“It is common knowledge that the students focus more on clearing the Civil Judges exam than concentrating on their academics. Their goal is to pass the civil judges exam instead of doing well in college. At the expense of their university studies, they even join tutors who guide them to the Civil Judge exam.” according to the Supreme Court.

The Court also said that standards for the judiciary have been stagnant for decades without any improvement, while standards have risen in all other professions.

“The standards have been stagnant for decades, without any improvement. Standards are raised at regular intervals in all professions, except the judiciary. The judiciary has remained satisfied with the standards established decades ago. The judiciary has remained satisfied with the standards established decades ago. This may not be appropriate,” according to the verdict.

It is therefore high time that the judiciary also competes on excellence to ensure that excellent results are achieved.

“Only when a brilliant law graduate with a brilliant academic career is selected as a judge can one be assured that the judgments will be of high quality.”

It also said that doing nothing to improve the status quo would be a gross violation of constitutional obligations.

The Court made the decision based on a batch of petitions challenging the amendment of Rule 7 of the Act Madhya Pradesh Judicial Service (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 1994, which was reported last year.

As per the amended rule, aspirants have to secure one (for General & Other Backward Class category candidates) and 50% marks for candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories.

Earlier, the criterion of at least three years of experience at the bar had been dropped in view of the 2002 Supreme Court decision in which the top court had accepted the Shetty Commission’s recommendation that it was not mandatory for an applicant to have three years of practice experience to have.

The bench of Justice Malimath and Justice Mishra, in the April 1 judgment, said the Supreme Court judgment was not properly applied as it was misinterpreted in favor of certain candidates, allowing “unmeritorious” law graduates to apply.

“The Shetty Commission’s recommendation was that it will no longer be mandatory to be a lawyer with three years of practice experience and that young and brilliant law students with brilliant academic careers will also be allowed to sit for the exam.” it noted.

The Court rejected the argument that clarification was required from the Supreme Court before making the amendment, saying the same was in line with the judgment of the top court.

The Court further said that by recommending abolishing the three-year practical experience requirement, the Shetty Commission had merely created an opportunity for “outstanding law students with brilliant academic careers” to sit for the exam.

The Court noted that a brilliant law graduate with a brilliant academic career, who has undergone two years of intensive training, could ostensibly replace the three years of experience of a lawyer.

“Therefore, a three-year experience was likely associated with an outstanding law graduate with a brilliant academic career with the above-mentioned training. It is for this reason that a candidate who is neither brilliant nor has a brilliant academic career can never replace a three-year practice period. Therefore, the intention of the Shetty Committee recommendation was probably that a practice period of three years can only be equated with such a law graduate who is an excellent law student and who has a brilliant academic career with training.” according to the verdict.

Thus, the Court held that those who do not meet the requirement would necessarily have to practice for three years. For the rest, it said that any law graduate who has succeeded in any way can always be compared to a candidate who has gained three years of experience.

It also rejected the argument that the requirement violated the right to equality before the law.

“The contention that students obtain different grades in different universities, which therefore leads to inequality in assessing the merits of the candidates, cannot be accepted in our considered opinion. Whether a student gets high or low grades does not only depend on the university. It may depend on the teacher or professor correcting the exam questions. It cannot be said that one university is strict and the other is liberal”, said the Court.

The Court also upheld the condition that the candidate should have passed all the examinations on the first attempt. It reasoned that if you want to see who is a brilliant law student with a brilliant academic career, the one who failed cannot be taken into account.

The argument that a student who may have failed a non-legal subject should be given some relaxation was rejected.

Arguing that there is a difference between a law graduate who has completed a three-year course and one who has completed a five-year course, the Court holds that the Advocates Act and the Bar Council of India make no such distinction.

It is pertinent that during the pendency of the present petitions before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court had directed that all candidates be allowed to appear for the Civil Judge Junior Division (Entry Level) Recruitment Examination – 2022.

While upholding the amendment, the Supreme Court noted that even after such relaxation, which allowed all candidates to appear based on the rule prevailing earlier, only six of the total 55 petitioners had cleared the preliminary examination.

“Even among the 49 ineligible petitioners, three did not even appear for the preliminary exam and two of the petitioners had not even registered for the said exam. It is indeed a very unfortunate state of affairs to note that in the main case in WP No. 15150 of 2023, the petitioner therein did not even appear for the preliminary examination” it said.

Meanwhile, in a provision for the aspiring candidates, the Court also ordered that the authorities will not insist on production of six order forms as proof of practice for a period of one year as required in the November 2023 advertisement.

The counsel representing the candidates had submitted that there are many cases where the candidate would have pleaded before the court but his name would not have been included in the order forms due to various reasons.

The Court accepted the argument and said that the order forms should not be the sole criterion for determining a candidate’s practice.

“However, we add that in the absence of furnishing six order forms etc. per annum as proof of practice for three years, the candidate will have to produce material to justify his claim that he has been in practice continuously for three years. Such material submitted to the authority at the relevant time would be considered by the authority as material in support of practice for a period of three years. Therefore, we believe that the said requirement is not mandatory, but just a directory”, the Court ruled.

Advocates Utkarsh Kumar Sonkar, Rameshwar Singh Thakur, Vinayak Prasad Shah, Swapnil Khare, Arpit Kumar Oswal, Sakshi Pawar, Nishant Datt, Anuj Shrivastava, Siddharth R Gupta, Aryan Urmaliya, Arun Kumar Pandey, Vijay Raghav Singh and Nitya Nand Mishra represented the petitioners .

Deputy Solicitor General Brahmadatt Singh represented the state.

Senior advocate Aditya Adhikari along with advocates Satish Chaturvedi and Eijaz Nazar Siddiqui represented the Supreme Court.

(Read judgment)