Bar Council seeks prior experience at Bar for new judicial officers

Bar Council seeks prior experience at Bar for new judicial officers

BCI says lack of practical experience leads to incapability and ineptness at handling matter, causes delay in disposing of cases

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has come down heavily on the direct appointment of judicial officers through the judicial service examination.

The BCI wants a minimum of three years of experience at the Bar before law graduates can take the exam and has announced that it will seek a modification of the order that allowed fresh law graduates to become judicial officers.

In a strong-worded statement, the BCI has said that lack of experience at the bar mostly results in incapability and ineptness in handling matters.

"The inexperience at the Bar is one of the primary and major reasons for delays in the disposal of cases in the sub-ordinate Judicial. Trained and experienced judicial officers can comprehend and dispose of matters at a much faster pace, thereby leading to efficient administration of justice," the BCI said in a press release.

According to the BCI, inexperienced judicial officers lack the proper understanding of the aspirations and expectations of advocates and litigants in a proper and decent manner. Many such officers are found to be impolite and impractical in their behaviours with members of the bar and litigants.

The BCI has said that it would file an application seeking modification of the 2002 Supreme Court order in the case of All India Judges Association versus Union of India that did away with the mandatory requirement of three years' experience before taking the judicial service exams.

The BCI plans to file an impleadment application in a recent petition filed in the SC by one Regalgadda Venkatesh, challenging Rule 592)(a)(i) of the Andhra Pradesh State Judicial Service Rule, 2007 that laid down such a condition. The Andhra Pradesh High Court has made three years of minimum practice as a lawyer compulsory for applying for the post of civil judge junior division.

The BCI has further plans of filing another application to seek impleadment as a party to plead in favour of urgency and requirement of three years for eligibility to take the Judicial Services Exam.

An apex court vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Aniruddha Bose had last week issued a notice on the petition while refusing to stay the rule.