Supreme Court revises scheme for engagement of law clerks, opens it to graduates from non – NLUs

The Supreme Court has revised the scheme pertaining to engagement of law clerks. The scheme has been published on the website of the Supreme Court today.

In a major departure from its previous scheme, law graduates from any college or University recognised by the Bar Council of India will now be eligible for being engaged as a law clerk in the Supreme Court.

Earlier, only graduates from National Law Universities were eligible to apply for clerkships. This had created quite a controversy, with allegations being levelled that the Supreme Court itself was violating the fundamental rights of citizens.

A Public Interest Litigation was also filed in the Delhi High Court challenging the earlier scheme. It was filed by one Phaguni Nilesh Lal, a graduate of Army Institute of Law, Mohali. A single judge Bench had ruled in favour of Lal in that case and had struck down the appointment process of law clerks as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had subsequently filed a Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) against that decision. During the hearing of the LPA, the lawyer appearing for the Supreme Court had informed the Court that a committee has been constituted to look into the matter afresh.

With the Supreme Court doing away with the controversial requirement, the LPA in the Delhi High Court may well become infructuous.

Besides the above change, the revised scheme now mandates that there will be a written exam and a personal interview as part of the screening process as opposed to the previous appointment process which only had a personal interview. 

Hat-tip to Shivam Singh @_SinghShivam for letting us know about the Scheme on Twitter

Read the full scheme below.