Education & Career
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Supreme Court cuts judicial exam practice to one year
The Hindu··21 Aug
On 21 August 2026, a Supreme Court bench modified its May 2025 ruling and cut mandatory bar practice for civil judge exams from three years to one. Chief Justice Surya Kant sat with Justices A G Masih and K Vinod Chandran in a split decision. Selected candidates must still complete academy training and a further year of clerkship.
Prism
What It Means For You
- If you plan to sit a civil judge exam before 31 March 2027, the bench said you may apply without proving three years at the bar.
- Anyone already preparing under the May 2025 three-year rule can treat Friday's order as a cut to one year, not a return to open fresh-graduate entry with no follow-on training.
- If you clear an exam in the transition window, you start as a trainee, not on the regular judicial pay scale, until academy and clerkship are signed off.
What's Happening
- The order was on review petitions against the 20 May 2025 judgment that had restored a three-year practice filter.
- The majority refused to drop the practice idea entirely. It shortened the pre-exam period and added a two-year post-selection track.
- Justice K Vinod Chandran was the dissent on the three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice.
How The One-Year Rule Sits Beside Two Years After Selection
- Civil Judge Junior Division is the usual first rung of the state judiciary, filled by public exam rather than promotion.
- Many states had allowed fresh law graduates to sit those exams before May 2025 brought the three-year bar back.
- The clerkship year is split: six months with a principal district or higher judicial service judge, then six months with a sitting High Court judge.
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