New Delhi, April 29:The Supreme Court today directed the Punjab and Haryana High Court Registry not to appoint any civil judge in Haryana without its nod and summoned the Registrar General with all the selection records pertaining to the exams held to fill 107 posts in lower judiciary.
The top court was hearing the plea filed by 92 aspirants to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) in Haryana. They alleged that 1,282 examinees, who had qualified the preliminary tests, appeared for the mains and out of them, only nine were selected for the interview against a total 107 vacancies.“Issue notice, returnable on May 3. The Registrar General will be present with records of the selection, including the evaluation of answer scripts of all the candidates who appeared in the main written examination. No appointments will be made without leave of the court,” said a Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.
The plea, filed through Prashant Bhushan, Amiy Shukla and Shakti Vardhan, has listed out several discrepancies and sought quashing of the result declared on April 11. The Bench was hearing the petition challenging the selection process and evaluation method on the grounds of being “unreasonable, arbitrary and malafide”.The petitioners alleged that various RTI applications were filed immediately after the result seeking disclosure of marks, copies of answer scripts, model answers and marking criteria, but to no avail. They alleged that there was a “serious problem” with the evaluation method being conducted for selecting judicial officers in Haryana.
A total of 14,301 candidates took the preliminary examination held on December 22, 2018 for 107 vacancies. Of them, 1,282 took the main examination on March 15 and 17. The main examination was cleared only by nine students against the total vacancies of 107 which means that a total of 99.298 per cent of the students failed the test, the plea said.
It further said that it was “surprising” and “invited disbelief” that at least 20-30 candidates, who had appeared for the main exam but were not selected for the interview, are those who have already cleared judicial examinations of other states or are sitting judges.
“Some of the candidates who have not been found fit for the interview are the toppers and gold medallists in their respective reputed law colleges,” the plea said.
The petition said the High Court had already scrapped the entire preliminary examination held earlier on July 16, 2017 on account of paper leak and had issued directions for an inquiry into the entire issue. — PTI
