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 notw