Bombay High Court: In the present case, petitioner-Maharashtra State Judges Association, an Association comprising members of judicial service in the State of Maharashtra, sought to raise a challenge to the recruitment process of District Judges through Nomination and challenged the advertisement dated 30-09-2023 regarding the selection process for the year 2022 and the advertisement dated 09-01-2024 regarding selection process for the year 2023. The Division Bench of A.S. Chandurkar* and Rajesh S. Patil, JJ., dismissed the petition and held that the attempt to fill in the 25% posts through Nomination was not in excess of 25% quota, that is, what was permissible under the Maharashtra Judicial Service Rules, 2008 (‘the 2008 Rules’).
Counsel for petitioner referred to Rule 5 of the 2008 Rules and stated that 25% of the District Judges were to be recruited through Nomination and the remaining 75% posts were required to be filled in through regular promotion for 65% of the said posts and accelerated promotion for 10% from amongst serving Senior Civil Judges. It was submitted that since the posts advertised exceeded the 25% quota as permissible, the advertisements were in breach of Rule 5 of 2008 Rules and thus, were liable to be set aside. It was also submitted that without amending the Schedule appended to the 2008 Rules, Respondent 2-Registrar General of this Court could not exceed the number of posts to be filled in through Nomination.
The Court opined that the challenge raised to the advertisements dated 30-09-2023 and 09-01-2024 could not succeed as under the provisions of Rule 5 of the 2008 Rules, 25% of posts in the cadre of District Judges were required to be filled in by Nomination from amongst eligible candidates. The Court stated that by Resolution dated 12-04-2017, the Permanent Selection and Appointment Committee of the High Court had resolved that for the purposes of determining the quota prescribed under Rule 5, the actual working strength of Judges in that cadre as on 31st March of every year had to be taken into consideration.
The Court stated that as the actual working strength of Judges would not be static every year, therefore, the figures indicated in the Schedule to the 2008 Rules could not govern the process of recruitment every year. The note appended to the Schedule clearly stated that the number of posts in each cadre would change from time to time depending upon the increase and decrease of the number of posts and the exigency of the situation. Thus, based on this, under the advertisement dated 30-09-2023, 4 posts were sought to be filled in under the 25% quota and under the advertisement dated 09-01-2024, 19 vacancies under that quota were sought to be filled in.
The Court dismissed the petition and held that it could be said that the attempt to fill in the 25% posts through Nomination was in excess of what was permissible under the 2008 Rules and petitioner’s submission that the posts in excess would amount to “Ex-Cadre posts” could not be accepted.
[Maharashtra State Judges Association v. State of Maharashtra, Writ Petition No. 3091 of 2024, decided on 17-01-2025]
*Judgment authored by: Justice A.S. Chandurkar
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Rahul S. Kadam with Shardul R. Diwan, Vedant P. Babar, Ditya S. Aklekar, Advocates for the Petitioner.
For the Respondents: Aditya R. Deolekar, Assistant Government Pleader for Respondent 1; Milind Sathe, Senior Advocate with Rahul Nerlekar, Advocate for Respondent 2.