SC Disposes Of Plea Challenging Norms Of Viva-Voce

The Supreme Court has recently directed the Jharkhand High Court to communicate to petitioners and impleaders in the viva voce examination.

A bench comprising Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Sanjay Karol heard a plea referring to the recruitment of judiciary in Jharkhand. The challenge in the petition is to the new regulation adopted by the High Court, particularly, with respect to viva-voce examination.

Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde represents the petitioners in a case related to recruitment rules. He informs the Bench that the existing rules require candidates to obtain a minimum of 30% marks in the viva-voce examination.

However, the High Court has recently adopted a new regulation that raises the requirement to 50% marks in the viva-voce examination. The petitioners are concerned that their names were not recommended because they didn’t meet the new requirement of 50% marks in the viva-voce examination, which is the main issue that was being challenged in the present petition.

In light of these circumstances, Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde made 2 requests to the Bench.

Justice Bose enquired, “When will the final decision be taken?”

Senior Advocate Sunil Kumar appearing on behalf of the High Court responded, “We have already taken the final decision. There were 22 vacancies. The High Court has made a recommendation for 13 and the decision is pending with the State Government. There are a number of districts which are going without a district judge.”

Therefore, he assured the petitioners that they had all obtained more than 50% marks in the viva-voce examination and the same is not the basis for not recommending their names for appointment to the post of the district judge.

“The ground they are urging now that new regulation is unconstitutional, let me assure you that each one of the petitioners has received more than 50% marks and that is not the reason why their names have been recommended by the High Court.”

Moreover, the Bench recorded in the statement made by Kumar on behalf of the High Court that while disposing of the writ petition, the Bench disposed of the implement applications.

However, the impleaders were given the liberty to approach the appropriate forum.