Notice issued on plea by civil judge challenging eligibility condition for UP higher judiciary service suitability test: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court in the case Adarsh Srivastava & Ors. v State of UP & Ors observed and issued notice in a plea preferred by Senior Division Civil Judges aggrieved by the notification dated May 30, 2022 issued by the State of UP which only made the officers who had completed three years of experience till December 31, 2021 eligible for taking Suitability Test of UP Higher Judicial Service-2020.

The bench comprising of Justice Abdul Nazeer and the Justice JK Maheshwari was hearing the petition.

The petition was filled by the judges who were in service since January 7, 2019 and could not appear in the exam due to the cut-off date being December 31, 2021.

While, challenging the impugned notification in the cut-off date, the petitioners had also sought for issuing directions to the Allahabad High Court to regard the petitioners as eligible for the suitability test-2020 and conduct another suitability test-2020 for those who got excluded because of the arbitrarily fixed cut-off date.

In the plea, it was argued that the impugned notification did not take into account the number of vacancies in the promotion cadre and that due to the cut off only 150 judicial officers were allowed to sit in the suitability test-2020 Which was held in the year 2022.

The plea stated that by any calculation, the number of vacancies for promotees through suitability test ought to be much higher than only 150 officers who were allowed to write the suitability test. However, there was no reason why as few as 150 candidates were allowed to sit for the test when there were more than double unfilled seats, and 175 candidates would have become eligible to sit for the test merely after 7 days of the arbitrarily cut-off date fixed. On 30.05.2022, the suitability test was notified but the cut-off date was fixed at five months prior to the date of notification.

Further, the plea stated that the arbitrarily fixed cut-off date resulted in exclusion of a large number of candidates who would have otherwise met the criteria as no suitability test was conducted in 2020 and 2021.

In the present case, it was also submitted that since the suitability test for the year 2020 was only conducted in June 11, 2022 the fixing of cut-off date as 31.12.2021 for completing the experience of three years and was arbitrary and thus discriminated against those judicial officers who would have completed their three years of qualified service on 07.01.2022, i.e., just after a week.

The Counsel, Senior Advocates Salman Khurshid, Jaideep Gupta and Vibha Makhija appeared for the petitioners.

AOR Sanchita Ain, filled the petition.