Direct Recruitment of Judicial Officers as District Judges| Judgement Matrix

Today, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that Article 233 does not exclude judicial officers with prior Bar experience from appointment as district judges under the Bar quota. The Bench held that such exclusion would violate equality and the constitutional design of recruitment to the higher judiciary. 

The Court further observed that restricting eligibility to advocates would violate Article 14 and directed States and High Courts to amend their service rules to allow judicial officers with Bar experience to be considered for recruitment.

Chief Justice B.R. Gavai authored the majority opinion for himself and Justices Aravind Kumar, S.C. Sharma and K.V. Chandran, while Justice M.M. Sundresh authored a separate concurring opinion.

The Court had reserved its judgement in the case on 25 September. For a comprehensive analysis of the reasoning and outcome, read our Judgement Summary.

In this judgement matrix, we summarise the key issues and holdings of the Court.