The Madras High Court’s decision to tighten the selection process for recruitment of district judges and introduce negative marking has made it difficult for candidates to clear even the preliminary examinations.
While not even a single candidate could get past the prelims held last in 2019, only six have cleared the exams conducted this year.
According to sources, the High Court had issued a notification on December 12, 2019, inviting applications for direct recruitment of 32 district judges in the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Service.
Lawyers with a minimum seven years of experience, Assistant Public Prosecutors and others were allowed to participate in the selection process.
Scheme of recruitment
The scheme of selection began with an objective type preliminary written examination in two papers (one on civil and the other on criminal law), followed by a main examination and then viva-voce.
Though the pr elims were scheduled to be held in March 2020, the exams got postponed due to COVID-19 and were held only on November 1.
Though around 2,500 candidates had taken the examinations, the results declared on Friday came as a shocker with just six clearing the prelims.
These six candidates would now have to undertake the main examinations, scheduled to be held on January 30 and 31, 2021, and then appear for viva-voce before the declaration of final results.
A similar exercise undertaken by the High Court in 2019, too, turned out to be a dampener with not even a single person out of 3,562 candidates managing to clear the preliminary examinations.
