CJI DY Chandrachud bats for national-level judicial recruitment

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 1

As 28 per cent of the total sanctioned strength of 25,511 posts of judges in district courts remained vacant, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Sunday favoured a national-level recruitment process for streamlining the selection of judicial officers for all states and union territories.

Addressing the two-day National Conference of District Judiciary here, the CJI said, “At the district level vacancies in judicial personnel stand at 28% and of non-judicial staff at 27%. 5 In order for the disposals to outweigh the institution of cases the courts must work beyond the capacity of 71% to 100%. To fill the vacancies, the conference deliberated upon the criteria for selection of judges and standardizing the recruitment calendars for all vacancies.”

Justice Chandrachud said, “The time has come now to think of national integration by recruiting members to the judicial services across the narrow walls of regionalism and state-centred selections.”

Currently, judges of the Supreme Court and high courts are selected through the Collegium system created by the Supreme Court in 1993 and the Government’s role is limited to checking the antecedents of those recommended for appointment as judges.

The judges of Subordinate Courts are selected through competitive examinations conducted by state public service commissions under the supervision of the respective high courts where the state governments have very limited role.

However, Article 312 of the Constitution empowers Parliament to enact a law to provide for the creation of one or more all India services (including an all India judicial service) common to the Union and the States. While All India Services such as IAS, IFS and IPS have been created, no step has been taken for creating an AIJS.

The Centre has repeatedly told Parliament that there’s no proposal to create an AIJS even as it maintained that such a service was important to strengthen the overall justice delivery system.

The Union Justice Secretary had in May 2017 written to the Supreme Court Secretary General suggesting a centralized examination to be conducted by a recruitment body such as the Union Public Service Commission for selection of judges in subordinate courts. The letter has since been converted into a PIL which has remained pending before the top court.

In November 2023, President Droupadi Murmu had proposed a “merit based, competitive and transparent” All-India Judicial Service (AIJS) to select “brilliant youngsters and nurture and promote their talents from lower levels to higher levels”.

The Centre had told Parliament in December 2021 that 13 high courts and eight states, including Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, have opposed the idea of AIJS while Haryana and Mizoram supported it.

The CJI highlighted the need to ensure that women working in the judiciary were made to feel welcomed and included. “We must change the fact that only 6.7 % of the court infrastructure at the district level is female-friendly. Is this acceptable today in a nation where at the basic level of recruitment in some states, over 60-70 % of recruits are women?” the CJI wondered.