Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday allowed fresh law graduates to apply for the post of junior civil judge (direct quota) by setting aside the pre-requisite that they must have three years of practice as advocates, a norm that was in vogue for the past two years.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy, gave this order while dealing with a batch of petitions.
While giving the order, the bench recalled the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court to the high courts and state governments to amend their rules to allow fresh law graduates who do not have three years of practice to compete and enter judicial services.
The bench said that the rules prescribed in the TS Judicial Service Rules were in violation of the apex court orders.
Clause 5 (2) (a) (ii) of the TS Judicial Service Rules 2017 insists that for a person to be eligible for appointment as a JCJ, the individual should have practised for not less than three years as on the date of publication of the relevant notification.
Challenging the clause, several petitions were filed before the Telanga-na high court since 2018, when the high court registrar issued a notification to fill up JCJ posts.
The bench also directed the high court registry to permit the judicial staff in categories like senior assistants, junior assistants and typists to compete for the civil judges post recruitment under the transfer quota.
