Supreme Court to examine allegations against Delhi Judicial Service Exam

After CLAT, NEET, Vyapam and other examination controversies which the Supreme Court had to deal with, a new addition to the list – the Delhi Judicial Service Exam, 2014..A Division Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and PC Pant today issued notice to the Delhi High Court in a public interest litigation filed by the Centre for PIL. The petition alleges arbitrary valuation, and selection of candidates in the Delhi Judicial Service Exam, 2014..When the matter was taken up as a listed mentioning case at 2 pm, Prashant Bhushan appearing for the petitioner Association submitted that while around 20,000 candidates wrote the preliminary exam only 15 were selected for an interview..“Many of the aggrieved who came to me are candidates who had topped judicial services exam in their respective States. They had chosen to give the Delhi Judicial Service Exam for personal reasons. There are 80 vacancies and only 15 have been selected for the interview. Most of the aggrieved candidates have very good academic track record.”.Advocate ADN Rao, standing counsel for Delhi High Court, replied that there was nothing unusual in selecting few candidates and it has happened before also..Justice Dipak Misra remarked that the case is per se a service matter and not an Article 32 petition but said that he would hear it..The Court proceeded to issue notice to the High Court though it refused to stay the ongoing selection process. The Court, however, recorded in its order that the results of the selection process will be subject to the outcome of the case..The DJS exam was held in July last year, pursuant to a notification that was issued after a period of three years. A total of 9,033 candidates appeared for the Prelims. Out of these, 659 students cleared the Prelims and became eligible to write the Mains. When the results were published in May this year, it turned out that only 15 candidates had cleared the exam, and asked to appear for the interview..Subsequently, advocate Prashant Bhushan addressed a letter to Delhi’s Chief Justice, G Rohini expressing certain reservations about the exam and evaluation methods. Bhushan’s letter also underlined the abysmally low number of successful candidates, and requested a fair re-evaluation. The matter took a political turn when Bhushan made the letter public. Soon thereafter, Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda wrote a letter to Justice Rohini and personally requested her to look into the allegations surrounding the exam..Meanwhile, JD (U) Chief Sharad Yadav too jumped in the fray and wrote to Gowda seeking his timely intervention in the matter. In addition, an online petition was also floated by unsuccessful candidates, requesting a review into the results..The interviews of 15 candidates will be held on August 6, i.e day after tomorrow..Read the notice for the interview here.