Supreme Court: The 3-judge Bench of SA Bobde, CJ and AS Bopanna and S. Ramasubramanian, JJ has ordered a revised schedule for appointment of judicial officers in the State of West Bengal for the year 2020. For the conduct of Madhya Pradesh HJS (District Judge – Entry Level) (Direct Recuitment from Bar) Examination 2020 , the Court has asked the Examination Committee of the Madhya Pradesh High Court to review the situation once in a month and take a decision to conduct the above examination.
High Court of Calcutta
The High Court of Calcutta has approached the Court seeking a modification of the timeline fixed by this Court in Malik Mazhar Sultan vs. U.P. Public Service Commission, (2008) 17 SCC 703 for filling up of vacancies of judicial officers for the year 2020. As per the Malik Mazhar case, the schedule is to commence with the notification of the number of vacancies being issued by the 31st March every year and the whole process coming to an end with the issuance of appointment letters by 30th September indicating the last date of joining as 31st October, 2020.
Admittedly, even the first step namely that of notifying the vacancies, has not been taken due to the announcement of lock down by 24.03.2020.
Therefore, the Court ordered a revised schedule for appointment of judicial officers in the State of West Bengal for the year 2020 as follows:
High Court of Madhya Pradesh
High Court of Madhya Pradesh approached the Court seeking deferment of MPHJS (District Judge – Entry Level) (Direct Recuitment from Bar) Examination 2020 till the Examination Committee finds it suitable to conduct the examination. The notification for recruitment was published on 16.01.2020 and preliminary examination was fixed to be held on 16.03.2020. However, the examination got postponed due to the current Pandemic. On 24.08.2020, a new notification was issued fixing the date of preliminary examination as 30.09.2020. But due to the increase in the number of persons affected by Covid-19, a request was received from the MP High Court Bar Association on 29.08.2020 seeking postponement of the examination.
A total of 3113 candidates are likely to appear for the examination and out of them 1942 candidates belong to other States. The examinations are to be conducted at Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur.
During the period from 25.03.2020 to 08.08.2020, 8 judicial officers, 52 judicial employees, and 46 Advocates tested positive for Corona. Therefore, the Court directed the Examination Committee of the Madhya Pradesh High Court to review the situation once in a month and take a decision to conduct the above examination. The first of such review shall be conducted in the first week of November, 2020.
The Court said that the the High Court may endeavour to hold the above examination as soon as the situation becomes conducive and the time-schedule shall stand extended accordingly.
[Malik Mazhar Sultan v. U.P. Public Service Commission, 2020 SCC OnLine SC 764, order dated 22.09.2020]