All India Judges Association vs Union of India

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2010 Supreme(SC) 1392

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
K.G. BALAKRISHNAN, CJI., DEEPAK VERMA, B.S. CHAUHAN, JJ.
All India Judges Association and Others – Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Others – Respondents
I.A. No. 227, 265 of 1989, 208 of 2006, W.P. (C) No. 1022 of 1989, C.A. No. 1867 of 2006
Decided On : 20-04-2010

Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Petitioners: Mr. Vijay Hansaria, Ms. Sneha Kalita, Mr. A.T.M. Sampath, Mr. Ejaz Maqbool.
For the Respondents: Mr. Sanjay Parikh, Mr. Anish R. Shah, Ms. Mamta Saxena, Mr. A.N. Singh, Ms. Saumya Ray, Ms. Anitha Shenoy, Ms. Bina Gupta, Mr. Vinay Kumar Garg, Mr. K.K. Mohan, Mr. V.N. Raghupathy, Mr. Dharmendra Kumar Sinha.
For the Rajasthan High Court : Mr. Sunil Kr. Jain.
For the State of Uttar Pradesh : Mr. Prashant Chaudhary, Mr. Garvesh Kabra, Mr. Shrish Kr. Misra.
For the High Court : Mr. T.L.V. Iyer (Kerala), Mr. T.G.N. Nair (Mizoram), Mr. K.N. Madhusoodhanan, Mr. R. Sathish.
For the High Court of Calcutta : Mr. Jaideep Gupta, Mr. G.S. Chatterjee, Mr. Sachin Das, Mr. Raja Chatterjee (Puducherry), Mr. V.G. Pragasam, Mr. S.J. Aristotle, Mr. Prabu Ramasubramanian.
For the Tamil Nadu : Mr. T. Harish Kumar.
For the State and High Court of Delhi : Ms. A. Subhashini.
For the Haryana : Mr. Manjit Singh, Mr. Kamal Mohan Gupta, Mr. T.V. George.
For the Gujarat : Mrs. Hemantika Wahi, Ms. Nupur Kanungo, Mr. Somanath Pandey.
For the State of Madhya Pradesh : Mr. B.S. Banthia, Mr. Vikas Upadhyay.
For the High Court of Orissa : Mr. Janaranjan Das, Mr. Swetaketu Mishra, Mr. P.P. Nayak.
For the Nagaland : Mr. S. Balaji, Mr. Atul Jha, Mr. D.K. Sinha, Mr. Nishe Rajen Shonker, Mr. Himinder Lal, Ms. Rajni Ohri Lal, M/s. S.W.A. Qadri, Shalinder Saini, Rekha Pandey, Sunita Sharma, Ron Bastian, Mrs. Anil Katiyar, Mr. D.S. Mahra.
For the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir : Mr. Bharat Sangal, Ms. Mrinalini Oinam, Mr. Mehdi Imam, Mr. Tabrez Ahmad, Mohd. Parvez Dabas, Mr. Anis Suhrawardy.
For the Manipur : Mr. Kh. Nobin Singh.
For the Assam : Mr. Riku Sarma, M/s. Corporate Law Group.
For the West Bengal : Mr. Bhaskar P. Gupta, Mr. Tara Chandra Sharma, Ms. Neelam Sharma.
For the State and Uttarakhand : Ms. Rachana Srivastava, Mr. T.N. Rao.
For the UPPSC : Mr. Shail Kr. Dwivedi, Ms. Vandana Mishra, Mr. Ashutosh K. Sharma, Mr. Manoj K. Dwivedi.
For the Bihar : Mr. Manish Kumar, Mr. Gopal Singh.
For the Tripura : Mr. Rituraj Biswas, Mr. Gopal Singh, Mr. Biswanath Agrawalla, Mr. Rajiv Mehta.
For High Court of Andhra Pradesh : Mr. T.V. Ratnam.
For State and Sikkim High Court : Mr. A. Mariarputham, Mrs. Aruna Mathur, Mr. Amarjeet Singh Girsa, M/s. Arputham Aruna, Mr. Lakshmi Raman Singh.
For State of Maharasshtra : Mr. Sanjay Kharde, Mrs. Asha G. Nair.
For the High Court of Madhya Pradesh : Mr. C.D. Singh, Mr. Sunny Chaudhary, Ms. Sukanya, Mr. Kamlendra Mishra.
For the All High Court : Mr. Rakesh Dwivedi, Mr. Ashok K. Srivastava, Mr. Shaiwal Srivastava, Mr. Debasis Misra, Mr. Aniruddha P. Mayee.
For State of Arunachal Pradesh : Mr. Anil Shrivastav, Mr. P.I. Jose, Mr. Vivek Kandari, Mr. Pradeep Misra, Mr. Radha Shyam Jena, Mr. Ashok Mathur, Mr. Arun K. Sinha, M/s. A. Rohen Singh, Ramesh K. Mishra, Ramesh S. Jadhan, Vikrant Yadav, Mr. Sanjay R. Hegde, Mr. Rajesh Srivastava, Mr. Jatinder Kr. Bhatia.
For the High Court of Sikkim : Ms. Anupama Sharma, Mr. Vishnu Sharma, Ms. S. Janani.
For State of Jharkhand : Mr. B.B. Singh.
For the High Court of Patna : Mr. P.H. Parekh, Mr. Ajay Kr. Jha, Mr. Vishal Prasad, Ms. Pallavi Srivastava, M/s. Parekh, Mr. Ranjan Mukherjee, Mr. S. Bhowmick, Mr. S.C. Ghosh, Ms. Kamini Jaiswal.
For the State of Andhra Pradesh : Ms. Altaf Fathima, Mrs. D. Bharathi Reddy.
For the State of Punjab : Mr. Ajay Pal.
For the High Court of Punjab and Haryana : Ms. Asha Jain Madan, Mr. Sachin Sharma, Mr. S.C. Patel, Ms. Binu Tamta, Mr. T. Mahipal, Mr. Prakash Kumar Singh, Mr. Y. Raja Gopala Rao, Mr. G. Prakash, Mr. Naresh K. Sharma, Mr. Anuvrat Sharma.
For the High Court of Tamil Nadu : Mr. R. Nedumaran, Ms. Sumita Hazarika, Mr. Siddhartha Chaudhary, Mr. Sunil Kr. Verma, Mr. Ugra Shankar Prasad, Mr. S. Chandra Shekhar, M/s. K. Enatoli Sema, Edward Belho, Rituraj Biswas, C.M.K. Kennedy, Mr. Soma Sundaram, Dr. Manish Singhvi, Mr. Devanshu Kumar Devesh, Mr. Milind Kumar, Mr. Vinay Kumar Sharma, Mr. Arvind Kumar Tiwary, Ms. Archna Kumari, Mr. R.S. Sharma, Mr. Ranjan Dwivedi, Mr. Dharam Bir Raj Vohra, Mr. Amit Kumar, Mr. Jawahar Lal, Mr. Somesh Chandra Jha, Mr. Shankar Divate, Mr. A. Mariyarputham, Mr. A.D.N. Rao, Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Mr. V. Giri, Mr. Sapam Biswajit Meitei, Mr. Ashok Kumar Singh, Mr. D.N. Ray, Mr. Lokesh K. Choudhary, Ms. Sumita Ray, Mr. Ashwani Garg, Mr. Azim H. Laskar, Mr. Sachin Das, Mr. Abhijit Sengupta, Mr. Krishnanand Pandey.

Headnote:
Limited Departmental Competitive Examination – Employment and Service – Acquittal - Matter had come up before this Court on judicial side to consider recommendations - After due considerations most of recommendations of Commission have been accepted by this Court - In All India Judges Association and Others - Union of India and Others this Court accepted recommendations and gave approval to these recommendations - But certain changes have also been made by this Court while accepting these recommendations – Held, There are about vacancies of Civil Judge Division out of which for about vacancies names have been recommended for appointment but matter is pending with Government - Government is directed to complete process and issue appointments within a period of four weeks - It is proposed to promote vacancies to cadre of District Judges and matter is also pending with Government - Government is directed to issue appointment orders within four weeks - In Re Andhra Pradesh - Appointments of candidates for posts of Civil Judge Division is pending with Government since January - Counsel for State - Submitted that immediate steps would be taken and State is directed to take urgent steps within period of six weeks to issue appointments - Uttar Pradesh - Appointments as regards posts of District Judges in State of Uttar Pradesh are pending with Government - Government has sought certain clarifications from High Court and same has been received only two weeks back - Counsel for State submits that urgent steps would be taken to fill up these vacancies which is hereby recorded - State will issue suitable directions at least within period of eight weeks - Appointment as regards posts of Civil Judge Division in State of Uttar Pradesh is pending with Government - Counsel for State submits that urgent steps would be taken to fill up these vacancies and that is recorded - State will issue suitable directions at least within period of eight weeks – Petition disposed

JUDGMENT :

I.A. No. 77

1. Justice Shetty Commission had suggested several recommendations to improve working of judicial service in various States. In the recommendations made by the Shetty Commission it was suggested that there should be rationalisation of cadre structure and base structure and also recommended that there should be Assured Carrier Promotion of Civil Judges (Sr. Divn.) and Civil Judges (Jr. Divn.). The Commission also recommended that not exceeding 25% of the cadre posts of District Judges should be reserved for direct recruitment. Various other recommendations have also been made by the Commission.

2. The matter had come up before this Court on the judicial side to consider the recommendations. After due considerations most of the recommendations of Shetty Commission have been accepted by this Court. In All India Judges' Association and Others vs. Union of India and Others, 2002 (4) SCC 247 this Court accepted the recommendations and gave approval to these recommendations. But certain changes have also been made by this Court while accepting these recommendations. In paragraph 27 of the above mentioned Judgment this Court stated:

“In order to achieve this, while the ratio of 75 per cent appointment by promotion and 25 per cent by direct recruitment to the Higher Judicial Service is maintained, we are however, of the opinion that there should be two methods as far as appointment by promotion is concerned: 50 per cent of the total posts in the Higher Judicial Service must be filled by promotion on the basis of principle of merit-cum-seniority. For this purpose, the High Courts should devise and evolve a test in order to ascertain and examine the legal knowledge of those candidates and to assess their continued efficiency with adequate knowledge of case-law. The remaining 25 per cent of the posts in the service shall be filled by promotion strictly on the basis of merit through the limited departmental competitive examination for which the qualifying service as a Civil Judge (Senior Division) should be not less than five years. The High Court have to frame a rule in this regard.”

3. After this Judgment, High Courts have amended Service Rules and 25 % posts of District Judges are being filled up by the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination. But many High Courts found it difficult to fill up 25 per cent through such process. In some of the States as many as 50 posts of District Judges, to be filled up by the said exercise, remained vacant and there is no alternative method provided by which, these vacant posts could be filled up. Some of the States, for example, in the States of Bihar, U.P. and Kerala, there are adequate Rules to the effect so that unfilled posts could be filled up by regular promotion. But in many States, there are no such Rules to fill up these vacancies. Most of the States are in favour of reducing the percentage from 25 per cent of Limited Departmental Competitive Examination, but many of the States, for example, States of Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, J&K and H.P. maintained that this 25 per cent should be continued but they are also of the view, in case there are vacant posts then it be filled up by regular promotion. For the time being, in many of the States, these unfilled vacancies are filled up by ad-hoc promotions or temporary promotions. This certainly creates difficulty in service as later on when regular candidates will be available for promotion, the ad-hoc/temporary District Judges are likely to be reverted as Civil Judge (Sr. Divn.), which is not desirable for a Judicial Service.

4. In some of the States sufficient number of candidates are not available for being promoted under this particular category as a Civil Judge (Sr. Divn.) in normal course gets promotion before completion of period of 5 years. As 25 per cent quota is prescribed, a large number of vacancies remained unfilled and that is not good for the judicial administration in that State.

5. Having regard to various st

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2010 Supreme(SC) 1392

SUPREME COURT OF INDIAK.G. BALAKRISHNAN, CJI., DEEPAK VERMA, B.S. CHAUHAN, JJ.All India Judges Association and Others – PetitionersVersusUnion of India and Others – RespondentsI.A. No. 227, 265 of 1989, 208 of 2006, W.P. (C) No. 1022 of 1989, C.A. No. 1867 of 2006Decided On : 20-04-2010

Cases Referred (1)

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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
K.G. BALAKRISHNAN, CJI., DEEPAK VERMA, B.S. CHAUHAN, JJ.
All India Judges Association and Others – Petitioners
Versus
Union of India and Others – Respondents
I.A. No. 227, 265 of 1989, 208 of 2006, W.P. (C) No. 1022 of 1989, C.A. No. 1867 of 2006
Decided On : 20-04-2010