Judicial service

THE proposed all-India judicial service (AIJS) is in the spotlight again, with President Droupadi Murmu suggesting that it should be created to ‘select brilliant youngsters and nurture their talent from lower to higher levels in the judiciary’. She has stressed the need for establishing a system in which judges can be recruited from varied backgrounds through a process which is merit-based, competitive and transparent.

The AIJS has been a subject of debate for decades; the first Law Commission, in its 14th report (1958), recommended its creation in the interest of ‘efficiency of the subordinate judiciary’. The Constitution was amended in 1976 to provide for the AIJS under Article 312. In March this year, the government had told Parliament that a properly framed all-India judicial service was important to strengthen the overall justice delivery system. However, the government had stated that there was no consensus on the proposal in view of divergence of opinion among the states and also among the High Courts. The AIJS, on the lines of other all-India services such as the IAS and the IPS, is a must to standardise and streamline judicial recruitments and ensure that the most deserving candidates are selected. It is also much needed to make the judiciary more representative and inclusive through adequate reservation for aspirants from marginalised and deprived sections of society.

Shockingly, the Bar Council of India had claimed in 2017 that 40-45 per cent of the lawyers in the country were probably having fake degrees. This makes the AIJS all the more relevant as it can reduce or eliminate the scope for political interference and irregularities in recruitments. The 2017 Haryana Civil Services (judicial branch) paper leak case, in which a former High Court registrar is among the accused, is symptomatic of the rot plaguing the system at the state level. A big challenge, of course, is to build consensus on the matter. It is hoped that the President’s pitch for the AIJS will make dissenting state governments and High Courts see reason.

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