Will an All India Judicial Service bring in talent?

The present system does not attract the best talent to the legal profession. While there are state-level exams, nothing exists on a national level to attract lawyers who will be a real asset to the judiciary. High court judges do not have specific requirements they have to meet to get elected. A three-member panel—which includes the Chief Justice and two senior judges — are entrusted with the task of making the process fairly arbitrary and non transparent. Deserving candidates often remain lawyers, while many of those who make it have political connections. I filed this PIL hoping that we can have a completely independent body such as the Union Public Service Commission or a proposed National Judicial Service commission to recruit advocates based on merit on a national level. The funny thing is that there is already a provision for an All Indian Judicial Service in the Constitution (Article 312). In the past, post 1925, our lawyers were elected by the executive and it is only after a PIL in the Supreme Court that the situation changed. I hope my efforts will help make the system more efficient.

Ashwini Upadhyay, advocate, Supreme Court & Delhi High Court

Rebecca John, Senior advocate
Simply filing a PIL will not help solve the issue. How will the All India Judicial Service bring more transparency in appointments? Is seniority the only consideration for appointment to the higher judiciary? I am opposed to blind pandering to seniority. Only one third of the judges in the High Courts are service judges — the rest are directly appointed from the Bar. If that is not going to change, how will an all-India service help? I don’t know whether this will be for the better or worse. As per my knowledge, one of the biggest differences is that candidates will be spread across the states — someone from Delhi can go to Bengaluru and vice versa. But we all know that it requires proficiency (reading, writing and understanding) a local language which IAS and IPS also require. This can be overcome. I believe that the richness of judiciary comes from experience and exposure to real cases which the AIJS exam will take away from. I would not be interested in taking an exam to be a judge.

Justice R C Chavan, Rtd High Court Judge
I fully support the idea of IJS. I had sent a note to the Chief Justice long ago when I was serving as a judge of the Bombay High Court in support of IJS.

We could consider recruiting persons to be eventually trained and appointed as judges from those who take the five-year law course after HSC. This way we may have well-trained judges coming to district courts at a younger age and when they move to the High Court, they can and provide fresh perspective. Even in a very transparent system there can be very bad appointments. The system is managed by people and personal preferences play a big role.

If you have selections right from the beginning, we can have young people who are committed to the cause of justice rather than those who want to further their career.

I was never an advocate, and I feel that being a judge has given me better exposure. I have had the opportunity to experience different litigation profiles and be exposed to a bigger spectrum of disputes.