Rule Only 10% of the vacancies, selected for main judicial exam from prelims exam, strike down: Supreme Court

Rule Only 10% of the vacancies, selected for main judicial exam from prelims exam, strike down: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court struck down Rule 5A of the Bihar Civil Service(Judicial Branch)(Recruitment) Rules 1995, as per which only 10% or 1:10 of the candidates who appear in the preliminary examination will be selected for mains.

The Supreme Court found that Rule 5A of the Bihar Civil Service(Judicial Services) was contrary to the dictum in Malik Mazhar Sultan v UPPSC (2008) 17 SCC 703, which held that candidates should be selected for main judicial service examination after preliminary examination in the ratio 1 : 10 with respect to advertised vacancies.
The Division Bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Naveen Sinha delivered judgment in writ petition filed by the 13 contestants.

Based on the Rule 5A, only 1843 candidates out of nearly 17000 contestants were called for main examination as against 349 advertised vacancies. Applying the dictum in Malik Mazhar, 3490 candidates ought to have been called.

LEGAL JOB UPDATE 

Bench observed: 

The Rule 5A  “clearly arbitrary” and that it “and violates the decision in Malik Mazhar Sultan”
 
“No useful purpose is going to be served by restricting the number of candidates for final written examination”, 
Supreme Court directed State of Bihar, High Court of Patna, Bihar Public Service Commission- to ensure that cut off marks are prescribed in future examinations. However, for the already conducted examination, the Court held that it was not appropriate to fix the cut off mark at this stage.

Case: RAHUL DUTTA & ORS. v. THE STATE OF BIHAR & ORS.