Odisha’s legal knowledge? None from sub-ordinate judicial service officers and only 2 from bar qualify to join as district judge against 22 vacancies

Bhubaneswar: The results of recent judicial recruitment examinations for the post of district judge give a clear indication about the standard of knowledge of the sub-ordinate judicial officers of the State.

No one from the in-service judicial officers could qualify against the 14 vacancies in the district judge posts for which competitive examinations were held recently.

“No candidate was found suitable for the post in the cadre of District Judge through Limited Competitive Examination”, the registrar-administration of Odisha high court has come out with a notification of the final results of the interview, which was held on September 30.

Interestingly, out of 17 applicants found to be suitable to sit for the limited written examination, only one could qualify for the interview.

However, only two from the bar could make it to join the district judge post. Names of practising advocates Rajashree Mohapatra and Dipti Prakash Brahma have been recommended to the State government for appointment as district judge.

“Two selected candidates– Rajashree Mohapatra and Dipti Prakash Brahma–are recommended to the State government for appointment to the posts in the cadre of district judge by way of Direct Recruitment from the Bar for 2019”.

The representation from the bar was also not so encouraging. Only 3 could qualify for the interview from the 335 applications found to be suitable to sit for the written examinations.

The registrar-administration of Odisha high court had invited applications separately for filling of the 22 vacant district judge posts directly from the bar and from the in-service sub-ordinate officers. While the advocates having 7 years experience in bar and are of 35 to 45 age group were eligible to apply, sub-ordinate judicial officer with 5 years of service experience qualify to apply for the post. The high court conduced two separate written examinations for the direct recruitment from the bar and in-direct recruitment from the in-service officers. For the direct recruitment, the candidates had to appear two papers of 100 marks each, while the in-service officers had to give limited examination of two papers of 75 marks each. The time duration for each paper was 2 hours. And, the qualifying mark for the written examination was 50%.