The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of continuous practice as an advocate immediately preceding the date of the application for appointment as a District Judge.

ORDER :

1. Both these petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, assail the stand of the relevant clause of the advertisement issued on the administrative side by the High Court of the advertisement dated 12.04.2022. Clause 2(ii) of the advertisement issued by the High Court on the administrative side provides that a candidate must be a practising advocate in Courts’ of Civil and / or Criminal jurisdiction on the last date fixed for submission of online applications and must have so practised continuously for a period of not less than seven years immediately preceeding as on the last date for submission of the online application on 04.05.2022.

2. Special Civil Application No. 8251 of 2022 has been filed for a direction to quash and set aside the position reflected in the E.mail dated 30.03.2022, by which, the candidature of the petitioner has been rejected on the interpretation advanced by the High Court on the administrative side referred to hereinabove.

3. Facts in brief of Special Civil Application No. 8251 of 2022 would indicate that the petitioner got enrolled with the Bar Council of Gujarat on 31.08.2003 and started practice as an advocate. She was appointed as a Civil Judge on an adhoc basis on 13.09.2012. On 11.11.2015, the petitioner resigned from the post of Civil Judge. After her resignation from the said post, the petitioner resumed her practice as an advocate before the District Courts, Valsad, Vapi, Silvassa, Daman and also before the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and the High Court of Gujarat.

3.1. Pursuant to an advertisement No. 1250 of 2020 dated 05.03.2020, which invited applications for recruitment to the post of District Judges, she applied for the said post on 09.03.2020. When the list of eligible candidates who appeared in the preliminaory examination was declared and in the subsequent preliminary examinations, the petitioner was successful. On 21.11.2021, she appeared for the written examinations conducted by the High Court. On 07.01.2022, she was declared as the sole qualified candidate. An interview was held on 18.01.2022. However, when the final result was put on the website of the High Court, she found that she was unsuccessful.

3.2. Oral representations and written representations were made by the petitioner for disclosure of reasons and for conveying her final marks. The High Court on 23.02.2022 conveyed to the petitioner by an E-mail rejecting her candidature by relying on Rule 5(2)(b) of the Gujarat State Judicial Services Rules, 2005, amended by the Notification of 05.06.2017. The impugned E-mail of 30.03.2022 informs the petitioner that “the extant rules i.e. the Gujarat State Judicial Services Rules, 2005 read with Article 233 of the Constitution of India makes it abundantly clear that the period of 7 years of practice has to be continuous period immediately preceding the date of the application and not 7 years any time in the past”. While communicating this decision, the High Court on the administrative side has relied upon the decision of the Apex Court in the cases of Dheeraj Mor vs. Honourable High Court of Delhi (Civil Appeal No. 1698 of 2020) and Deepak Aggarwal vs. Keshav Kaushik and Others (Civil Appeal No. 561 of 2013).

4. Shri S.N. Shelat, learned Senior Counsel appearing with Ms. Dhara Shah, learned advocate for the petitioner inviting the attention of the court to the pleadings particularly with regard to the dates of enrollment of the petitioner as an advocate and the judicial service in the interregnum would submit that the petitioner was enrolled at the bar on 31.08.2003. Before she was appointed as a Civil Judge on ad-hoc basis on 30.09.2012 she had practiced at the bar for over 9 years and 13 days. On resigning from judicial service and resuming her practice, on the last date of the application pursuant to the advertisement of 2020 she had four years, four months and two days of practice. In other words, when she applied for the post of District Judge