NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed a Madhya Pradesh High Court ruling which made three-year legal practice mandatory to be eligible for the civil judge’s post.
A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Atul S Chandurkar allowed the appeal filed by Madhya Pradesh High Court challenging the ruling of its division bench.
Advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, appearing for the HC, argued that a re-exam was “unconstitutional, impractical” and would floodgates of litigation.
The Madhya Pradesh Judicial Services (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 1994 were amended on June 23, 2023, to make three years of practice compulsory to be eligible to appear for the civil judge entry-level test in the state.
The apex court passed the order on an appeal filed by the high court against the June 13, 2024, order passed by its division bench directing it to weed out or exclude all those successful candidates in the preliminary examination held on January 14, 2024, who did not fulfil the eligibility criteria under the amended rules.