1. Heard Sri Rajesh Chaubey, petitioner-in-person. Sri Manish Goyal, learned counsel has appeared for the respondents.

2. The petitioner after obtaining the degree of law got himself enrolled on 03.08.2009 with the U.P. Bar Council. After his enrolment, he practised as a lawyer in the district court at Varanasi for about three years. Thereafter, he took a full time employment as Law Officer with the State Bank of India w.e.f. 03.09.2012. Presently, the petitioner is working as Deputy Manager (Law) with the State Bank of India.

3. The petitioner applied under the Uttar Pradesh Higher Judicial Service Examination-2018 for recruitment to the Higher Judicial Service of the State of U.P. The petitioner's on line application for the aforesaid recruitment has been accepted but he is not being allowed to submit hard copy/off line application for the same for which the last date is 03.01.2019.

4. The argument of the petitioner is that his offline application is not being accepted for the reason that the petitioner has not put in seven years of continuous practice as an advocate. The petitioner got himself enrolled as an Advocate in 2009 and continues to be an Advocate even today notwithstanding his employment with the State Bank of India.

5. The petitioner in this connection has relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Deepak Aggarwal vs. Keshav Kaushik and Others, (2013) 5 SCC 277.

6. The recruitment to U.P. H.J.S. is governed by the U.P. Judicial Service Rules, 1975. Rule 5 of the Rules provides for the sources of recruitment to the U.P. Higher Judicial Service and it inter-alia provides for direct recruitment from amongst the advocates of not less than seven years of standing on the first day of January next following the year in which the notice inviting applications is published.

7. For the sake of the convenience Rule 5 (c) of the Rules is reproduced herein below:-

"by direct recruitment from amongst the Advocates of not less than seven years standing on the first day of January next following the year in which the notice inviting applications is published."

8. In view of the aforesaid Rule seven years of standing as an advocate is mandatory for applying to the post of U.P. Higher Judicial Service. However, the aforesaid Rule has to be read along with Rule 49 of the Bar Council of India Rules which reads as under:-

"An advocate shall not be a full-time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practise and shall, on taking up any employment, intimate the fact to the Bar Council on whose roll his name appears and shall thereupon cease to practise as an advocate so long as he continues in such employment."

9. According to the aforesaid Rule an advocate cannot be a full time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practice and is required to intimate the Bar Council if he takes any employment and on such intimation he shall cease to be a practising advocate as long as he continues in such employment.

10. In view of aforesaid Rule, an advocate, who is enrolled with the Bar Council upon taking any full time employment with any concern on intimation to the Bar Council about such employment ceases to be a practising lawyer.

11. In the present case it is not in dispute that the petitioner took full time employment with the State Bank of India and has given intimation of the employment to the Bar Council and as such had ceased to be a practising advocate the moment he took such employment. Therefore, he ceased to be a practising advocate w.e.f. 03.09.2012 when he joined the services of State Bank of India. In other words, his certificate of enrolment stood surrendered from the said date.

12. In this view of the matter the petitioner remain to be a practising advocate only for a period of three years and is not having seven years of standing as an advocate.

13. A Division Bench of this court in Writ Appe