PTI
New Delhi
In a major relief to law graduates, the Supreme Court on Friday reduced to a year the earlier mandatory requirement of three-year legal practice for them to take entry level judicial service examination.
However, the selected candidates will have to undergo training at the judicial academy and a further one-year clerkship, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices A G Masih and K Vinod Chandran said in a split decision of 2:1.
On May 20 last year, a bench headed by then Chief Justice of India B R Gavai, since retired, had barred fresh law graduates from appearing in the entry-level judicial services examination, fixing a minimum three-year law practice criterion.
On Friday, a three-judge bench headed by CJI Kant, in a majority verdict of 2:1, modified the May 2025 verdict and relaxed the mandatory three-year legal practice criterion for law graduates aspiring to become judicial officers.
“All law graduates shall be eligible to apply, notwithstanding the three-year practice requirement. Having regard to the fact that more than a year has elapsed since the judgment under review was pronounced, such candidates shall, for the purposes of their applications, be deemed to have completed one year of active practice,” it said.
The top court said they shall not be required to furnish a separate certificate of practice in support of the said deemed period.
It added that candidates selected pursuant to the said recruitment shall, upon appointment, be designated as “Trainee Judicial Officers” and shall undergo a compulsory period of one year of intensive training at the concerned state judicial academy. “This period shall be treated as equivalent to one year of practice at the Bar for the purposes of the three-year requirement,” it said.
The top court said during the period of such training, the trainee judicial officers shall be paid a fixed emolument equivalent to one-half of the remuneration payable to a judicial magistrate first class in the concerned state.
“They shall, in addition, be entitled to the facilities and other benefits ordinarily made available to trainees at the concerned State Judicial Academy,” the bench said, adding that upon successful completion of the said training, the trainee judicial officers shall undergo a further period of one year of structured law clerkship.
It said the first six months shall be spent as a law clerk under the supervision of the principal district or district and sessions judges or members of the higher judicial services, and the remaining six months under the supervision of a sitting judge of the concerned high court.
