THE SUPREME COURT’S latest ruling, Bhumika Trust v. Union of India (2026), dilutes the three-year practice rule by revisiting its earlier ruling: All India Judges Association v. Union of India (AIJA 2025). The bench comprised Justice Surya Kant, Justice Augustine Masih, and Justice Vinod Chandran, with the latter two having also been part of the three-judge bench that reinstated the three-year practice requirement last year. The majority, comprising Justice Kant and Justice Masih, reiterated that three years of prior practice at the Bar remains mandatory, but proposed alternative modalities for satisfying the practice requirement. Justice Chandran, by contrast, declined to revisit the rule, holding that there was no scope for reviewing AIJA 2025.
This piece critiques Bhumika Trust primarily on four grounds. First, the mandated two-year period of pre-induction training and clerkship disincentivises judicial aspirants on several counts. Second, the insistence on structured judicial training and clerkship rests on the assumption that state judicial academies and the respective High Courts are adequately equipped to facilitate both components, an assumption that does not withstand even the preliminary scrutiny. Third, the reform lacks a litigant-centric orientation: it places disproportionate emphasis on the challenges that the three-year practice requirement poses for women, weaker sections, and other vulnerable groups, while overlooking the reform’s implications for timely recruitment of judicial officers to subordinate courts. Fourth, the ruling rests on perception-driven policy assumptions, and reflects a continued disregard for the autonomy of High Courts and state governments in matters of judicial service. Before developing these objections, however, it is necessary first to understand the implications of the majority view.
The ruling reduces the required period of practice at the Bar to one year; however, aspirants must furnish evidence of this one year of practice at the time of application, in accordance with AIJA 2025. Upon successful completion of the recruitment hurdles (written examination and viva voce), the “Trainee Judicial Officers” must undergo one year of “intensive” training at the state judicial academy. Upon completing the training, the trainee judicial officer should undertake a six-month clerkship with a District Judge, followed by a further six-month clerkship with a sitting High Court judge. On completion of the clerkship, the trainee judicial officer shall submit a reasoned report, obtained from the mentor High Court Judge, evaluating the trainee's performance and suitability. Only when the High Court Judge finds the performance of the trainee judge “satisfactory”, he/she will be formally appointed to a judicial office. During the training and clerkship, trainee judicial officers are entitled to half of the salary payable to a Judicial Magistrate First Class in that state. They become entitled to the regular pay scale and other service benefits only upon appointment to a judicial office.
The training-clerkship regime as a deterrent to entry
While most states have dedicated judicial academies, their capacities vary significantly, and not all are equipped to deliver intensive, year-long judicial training. Notwithstanding the recommendations of the Shetty Commission, directions issued by the Supreme Court in AIJA 2002 and relevant recruitment rules, the average duration of pre-induction hovers between 4 and 7 months in most state academies. While many academies follow a staggered, phased pre-induction training, partly to cope with resource constraints.
In light of the limited faculty and administrative support, most academies would struggle to reorient their training pedagogy and rework their calendars. A year-long training programme would also require High Courts to depute additional in-service judges to support the state judicial academies. In sum, implementing Bhumika Trust will carry significant financial, administrative, and governance implications for state judicial academies. More pertinently, given the well-documented shortcomings of the judicial training these academies currently deliver, an impact assessment of their programmes across states is long overdue and should precede any expansion of their mandate.
Undoubtedly, mandatory clerkship would expose trainee judicial officers to the courtroom environment and help them cultivate the skills and traits necessary for successful judgeship. Yet the gate-keeping role assigned to sitting High Court judges undermines this very purpose. Having already cleared rigorous recruitment hurdles, both written and oral, why should a trainee judicial officer additionally be subject to the subjective satisfaction of a sitting High Court judge? More fundamentally, why should a trainee trial court officer spend six months under a High Court judge at all? The work of a High Court judge bears limited relevance to that of a trial court judge; if the sitting judge has been drawn from the Bar, his/her understanding of the intricacies of trial courts would be limited. In any case, training and clerkship should instead be designed to hone the skills essential for success at the trial-court level.
As the majority view in Bhumika Trust envisages, appointment is reserved only for trainee judges whose performance has been found satisfactory. Given the magnitude of repercussions that the High Court judge’s assessment would have on the career of a trainee judicial officer, to mitigate the subjectivity, the ruling should have prescribed guardrails. For instance, there could have been a second chance for the trainee judicial officer to prove his/her suitability; similarly, the first and second evaluations could have been conducted by a committee of judges instead. Yet the ruling neither sufficiently rationalises why the six-month clerkship must be conducted under a sitting High Court judge, nor prescribes any guardrails against the potential abuse of such unchecked discretion.
In practice, a clerkship structured around the discretion of a sitting High Court judge risks devolving into an exercise in deference, wherein the trainee judge's primary incentive becomes accommodating the preferences and expectations of his mentor judge, rather than cultivating the substantive competencies required for effective adjudication at the trial court level. Such an arrangement conflates institutional hierarchy with pedagogical utility, and in doing so, subordinates skill development to personal patronage. What would be the implications of this regulatory subordination and the vulnerabilities of trainee judicial officers on their decisional independence once they are appointed to a judicial office is not at all a point of reflection in Bhumika Trust.
In practice, clerkship under a sitting High Court judge would also prove administratively challenging, if not impracticable. In states with substantial judicial vacancies, recruitment drives often extend to well over a hundred posts, a figure that frequently exceeds the working strength of sitting judges in the concerned High Court. Consequently, a single High Court judge may be required to simultaneously supervise several trainee judges, a disproportionate mentor-mentee ratio that would inevitably strain the High Court judge's capacity for individualised mentorship. Such an arrangement would undermine the very objective the ruling arguably seeks to achieve, namely, ensuring that each trainee judge receives the sustained, personalised guidance necessary for effective judicial training.
More pertinently, the proposal does not clarify whether these judicial officers, upon appointment to a regular post, would be on probation for the two years following their initial appointment. As the ruling is silent on this issue, it would be safely presumed that the extant conditions of service rules continue to apply. Meaning these newly inducted judges will be subject to probationary evaluation after completing two years of service, which may culminate in their confirmation or summary discharge. Although most High Court rules limit the probation period to the first two years after appointment, experience shows that the probation period is either extended further or the confirmation process takes 2-3 years more to complete. When the probationary period is added to the training and clerkship ordeal, a Damoclean sword hangs over the first four to five years of trainee judicial officers’ service life. In effect, the judicial officers’ career and professional standing rest almost entirely at the mercy of the senior judges.
The Missing Litigant Perspective
The ruling repeatedly emphasises that Bar practice and professional experience are indispensable to judgeship. It painstakingly accounts for the challenges of the aspirants, especially of weaker sections and vulnerable groups. However, it fails to account for the implications of this ruling on ensuing judicial vacancies and recruitment challenges. There is a chronic shortage of subordinate court judges – delays in recruitment, infrastructure deficiency to host sanctioned strength, and intermittent interruptions caused by incessant judicial interventions have further exacerbated the human resource challenges in most states. As the dissenting judge rightly notes, the training and clerkship hiatus further exacerbated the shortage of judges, and consequently the problem of delay and pendency.
Further, as Justice Chandran rightly observes, the training and clerkship period would not count towards the judicial service tenure of trainee judicial officers. This entails a significant loss for the trainees themselves, who receive only half salary during this period, with no other perks, including accommodation during the clerkship. However, this arrangement simultaneously imposes a notable financial burden on the state exchequer. The transition from trainee to full-fledged judicial officer is, therefore, unlikely to be as seamless as the ruling envisages. Even when High Courts and state governments put their best foot forward, the reform will impose unavoidable costs - in time, money, and administrative capacity - not only on the states but ultimately on litigants awaiting judicial redress.
Perception-driven policy assumptions
While the debate over whether practice at the Bar correlates with judicial competence is centuries old, the Supreme Court of India has grappled with it as a policy issue since the 1990s, oscillating for and against the requirement more than once in the decades since. The Supreme Court’s policy flip-flops on the matter have been drawn on reports of multiple Law Commission reports, Shetty Commission Recommendations, the views of High Courts and states, submissions from law universities and schools, and the arguments of counsel and amici. Regrettably, the Court has never moved beyond these perception-based submissions to inquire into causality.
Neither the Supreme Court nor the High Courts that have submitted several rounds of views before the Supreme Court have empirically examined whether three years of Bar practice actually correlates with judicial competence. Although the Supreme Court implicitly recognises this as a policy matter, its approach remains dominated by an adjudicatory style: it hears contesting parties and key stakeholders' perceived views but never tethers itself to establishing causality. As a result, whatever the particular bench happens to regard as “right” on that day translates into pan-India judicial policy, regardless of empirical realities.
On the issue of the practice requirement, the Supreme Court’s policy prescriptions continue to change with the composition of the Bench. The Court must recognise that policy choices demand more than rhetorical reasoning. In Bhumika Trust, the majority, though it commits to revisiting the matter in light of "empirical material" after five years, disregards the views expressed by most High Courts, whereas the dissent defers to them. Yet the bench as a whole, like several benches since the 1990s, fails to look beyond the views and recommendations and ground its conclusions in empirical evidence.
It is not that empirical evidence on the matter would be conclusive or irrefutable; however, empirical insights would usher policy conversations to a deeper level, eventually transcending the views of judges composing the bench. Empirical inquiry would reflect more strongly on judicial probity and confer legitimacy on the Supreme Court’s policy interventions. Such an approach would embed policy prescriptions that are rooted in ground realities. As a result, individual judges’ policy preferences would take a back seat, leading to consistency and evidence-based consensus, both of which are essential for effective implementation.
Similarly, recalibration of the practice requirement to accommodate the constraints of all vulnerable groups may not be the only way out. In fact, it is the Supreme Court that has made the judicial service inaccessible to different age groups and experiences. The Constitution does not prohibit holding direct recruitment drives for posts such as Civil Judge (Senior Division). Similarly, it is only the Supreme Court that limited the direct recruitment for the District Judge Cadre to 25%, and reserved Civil Judge (Senior Division) posts exclusively for promotion-based appointments. By making reasonable accommodations for in-service judicial officers, direct recruitment could be conducted at each level. However, relying on perception-based policy assumptions, the Supreme Court itself has foreclosed these policy choices.
Having direct recruitment drives at the entry, mid and higher levels, the judicial service can be thrown open to all age groups and diverse experience. More importantly, compliance with the reservation scheme at each level ensures adequate representation of weaker sections and vulnerable groups. Instead of throwing open the judicial service and complying with the reservation scheme, the SC is further entrenching the gate-keeping potency of senior judges. All based on assumptions and its own policy preferences.
Continued disregard for the constitutional autonomy of the states and High Courts
Earlier this year, while commenting on the pending review petition, I argued that the constitutional scheme – comprising Articles 233 to 235, Article 309 and relevant entries in the Seventh Schedule – confers exclusive regulatory competency on states and High Courts. This regulatory competence extends to recruitment and appointments to the state judicial service. Consequently, the Supreme Court has no policy-making competency in matters of state judicial service.
However, the SC has circumvented its regulatory limitations by resorting to continuous mandamus, starting with WP No 1022/1989. As evident in Bhumika Trust (paras 78-80) and All India Judges’ Association Case of 1993 (para 56), the Supreme Court retains exclusive authority to clarify and revisit its policy directions; meaning, notwithstanding the constitutional provisions to the contrary, states and High Courts cannot deviate from or replace the policy proposed by the Supreme Court. This top-down, centralised approach inhibits the High Courts’ initiative and ingenuity to reform recruitment schemes in light of their local conditions and challenges.
The ruling overlooks the administrative and consultative constraints High Courts operate under. Every Supreme Court’s policy prescription requires corresponding changes to judicial recruitment and service rules: to comply with Bhumika Trust, the High Court's Rules Committee must first draft the amendments, secure approval from the Full Court, and then forward them to the state government for approval and notification. Even when the state government and the High Court's internal mechanisms work in tandem, this process alone can take months. Bhumika Trust (para 76) sets a three-month deadline for rule amendments, but compliance across all states and High Courts is unlikely. AIJA (2025), for instance, imposed the same three-month deadline, yet the Punjab Civil Service (Judicial Branch) Amendment Rules were notified only last month. Since some of these constraints lie beyond the High Court's sole control, insisting on rigid deadlines and expecting uniform compliance across states is unrealistic. Administrative delays undeniably affect recruitment exercises, but overbearing deadlines burden all stakeholders alike. Rather than imposing policy choices on High Courts and States, the Supreme Court should empower them to formulate recruitment policies, assume ownership of the regulatory framework, and remain accountable for the effective regulation of judicial service.
Concluding thoughts
In its attempt to make entry norms more accessible, the Supreme Court has opened a Pandora's box. Hitherto, the issue was primarily two-dimensional — the needs of judicial office on the one hand, and equitable accommodation of aspirants' differing circumstances on the other. Post-Bhumika Trust, however, judicial recruitment will become a multi-dimensional endeavour, its success contingent on a web of variables. The reform's fate now hinges, inter alia, on the preparedness of judicial academies, the responsiveness of individual High Court and district court judges, and the diligence of regulatory agents tasked with ensuring a smooth transition of trainee judicial officers into their first posting.
Viewed from a purely practical and logistical standpoint, the reform proposal rests on an overestimation of institutional readiness. It overlooks the administrative and logistical constraints already facing High Courts and academies, and it fails to account for the basic needs of trainee judicial officers — accommodation during clerkship being a case in point. More troublingly, it ignores the disincentives the scheme would create for aspirants themselves, who must now navigate an additional layer of uncertainty and subjective assessments before securing appointment.
Another significant implication of the ruling is the creation of differently regulated cohorts of judicial entrants: the pre-2025 cohort, the transitional cohort of 2025–2027, and the post-April 2027 cohort. Although all three cohorts will ultimately form part of the same judicial cadre, they will need to be accommodated within the entry-level structure through corresponding amendments to service rules and regulatory arrangements. This is likely to produce abrupt changes in service conditions. Unless such changes are designed with due regard to the historical evolution of the cadre and are introduced through a process of gradual rationalisation, they may provoke institutional resistance and, in some instances, protracted litigation.
Although the majority frames the five-year period as a threshold for formal reconsideration of the proposed policy, this timeline does not constitute a binding embargo on judicial reconsideration. Indeed, Bhumika Trust itself perpetuates the increasingly troubling practice of one coordinate bench effectively overruling another. Given this precedent, nothing precludes a future coordinate bench from similarly discontinuing or recalibrating the practice-training-clerkship regime before the five-year review period lapses. Regardless of how the reform takes shape, however, its implications for judicial recruitment are likely to be felt for decades to come.
In the interim, before any such judicial course correction materialises, the cumulative effect of the ruling will be to subcategorise entry-level state judicial service, fragment service conditions across cohorts, and invite prolonged litigation and dissatisfaction among judicial officers. In a nutshell, this is a case of reform enacted in haste, one the judicial system is poised to repent at leisure.