Will the Centre and the Judiciary finally agree on the All India Judicial Services?

Even as the deadlock between the Executive and the Judiciary on appointments to the higher judiciary continues, the Centre has once again pitched the idea of having a common entrance exam for an All India Judicial Services (AIJS), reports DNA..And it appears that both organs of state are on the same page regarding this initiative. According to the same report, Chief Justice of India TS Thakur is likely to meet the Chief Justices of all states to discuss the modalities of AIJS..There are plenty of reasons to agree..The call for the AIJS comes at a time when there are 5,111 judicial posts lying vacant in the subordinate judiciary, as of June 30. As per the latest National Judicial Data Grid statistics, there are 2.3 crore cases pending in the country, the majority of which are in the lower courts. Despite these figures, as of now, recruitment of subordinate judiciary in eleven states is done by the high courts, while in the other seventeen states, it is done by the state public service commissions..Moreover, the Centre has made it clear that it does not want to play a role in appointing lower court judges, with Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad confirming the same in a recently held high-level advisory council meeting that was attended by Law Commission Chairman Justice BS Chauhan..The Law Commission itself had recommended the formation of AIJS in its 116th Report released back in 1986. In fact, the Supreme Court had, in 1992, ruled that the recommendations of the Law Commission “be examined expeditiously and implemented as early as possible” by the Centre. More recently, in a petition filed in the Delhi High Court, a Bench headed by Chief Justice G Rohini directed the government to look into the prospect of introducing the AIJS..Previous Law Ministries, including those headed by Veerappa Moily and Ashwani Kumar, have mooted the idea before, to no avail. It has also been discussed at multiple Chief Justice and Chief Ministers’ Conferences before..So why is the AIJS yet to see the light of day despite these efforts?.The main reason, it appears, is a lack of consensus among the high courts. For example, in 2012 a Committee of Secretaries chaired by the Cabinet Secretary had approved a “comprehensive proposal” for creation of the service. At the time, 18 high courts out of 24 had responded to the proposal, and most of them had opposed it. The apprehension was that judicial independence would be compromised if the proposal went through..Moreover, as per Article 312 of the Indian Constitution, the AIJS “shall not include any post inferior to that of a district judge”. This essentially means that those who directly become district judges through AIJS will have a better chance of making it to the higher judiciary than those who have had to start at courts lower than district courts..The question now remains as to whether the Centre will come out with a more favourable proposal, one that will perhaps be agreed upon by all the High Courts. Whether the introduction of AIJS will improve the standard of lower court judges is anybody’s guess. However, what it will do is provide a steady supply of judges to subordinate courts, and as a consequence, help with the vacancies in the higher judiciary as well.