WHILE MAKING A CASE for opening the top court of the country to legal academics as Supreme Court judges, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan (hereinafter referred to as “Bhuyan, J.”), a Supreme Court Judge, said-
“While our Constitution has a provision for appointment of a jurist as a judge of the Supreme Court, no jurist has been appointed so far to the Supreme Court though the Constitution has completed more than 76 years.” Bhuyan, J. was addressing the 13th convocation of the 2026 LLM batch of the National Law University, Delhi. The author emphasizes that LLM is the entry point to legal academia.
A few days back, the Supreme Court conclusively barred, though not explicitly, but as an implication, the products of legal academics such as doctoral Scholars, teaching assistants, research assistants, and assistant professors. They are excluded from competing in the entry-level recruitment examinations for Civil Judges (Junior Division) unless they possess a year of experience in practice at the bar.
The above exclusion was the collective outcome of the Supreme Court judgments in All India Judges Association v. Union of India (hereinafter referred to as “May 2025 verdict”) and Bhumika Trust v. Union of India (hereinafter referred to as “August 2026 verdict”). The same batch of LLM students that Bhuyan, J. was addressing was also disqualified if they did not possess relevant minimum practice at the Bar after 31st March, 2027.
The May 2025 verdict introduced a minimum of 3 years’ practice at the Bar as an eligibility to write the civil judges recruitment examinations. The August 2026 verdict diluted the minimum three years of practice to ‘mere’ one year. This one-year practice rule will apply after the transitional period. The window ends on 31st March, 2027. During the transitional period, no practice at the bar is required.
In addition to academics, many other law graduates have been excluded. These include Legal Managers, Officers, and In-house Counsels working in public sector companies, including Navratnas, multinational companies, banks, and other private sector entities.
Transitional Window- An Illusion
As a relief to law graduates, mostly from Gen Z, the apex court granted a transitional window of around seven months. During this window, there is no requirement for any minimum duration of practice at the bar to write the Civil Judges examinations. The author has the following difficulties with the transitional window:
a.) The Civil Judges Examinations are infamous for being non-annual and irregular in nature. The exams have no predictable examination calendar or duration. They are a three-tier cycle of examinations, including prelims, mains, and viva voce. They start with the publication of the exam notification and conclude with the declaration of the results. The reasons attributed to delays in the recruitment examinations are numerous, including, but not limited to, administrative lethargy, roster clearance, and rampant litigation.
The August 2026 verdict provides no guarantee that each state will notify the examination at least once before the transitional window concludes. Further, the change in eligibility, as declared by the Supreme Court, delays the process, as the examination rules need to be amended. The court granted a comfortable three-month period for such a change in the examination rules. The three-month window further exhausts the already thin transitional window of mere seven months.
b.) The assembly elections to states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur, and Goa are slated to be conducted during the first quarter of 2027. The enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct often delays public recruitment processes. This further diminishes the possibilities of notification or conduct of such examinations within the transitional window.
c.) The protests by Gen Z & Gen Alpha have directed the popular narrative towards the sanctity of competitive examinations. The system needs an overhaul. The authorities might fear a rapid push to conduct competitive examinations without being sure of their sanctity.
If the states fail to notify the examinations within this period ending on 31st March, 2027, the benefit of the transitional period will not be available to those for whom it was designed.
The seven-month window is problematic because, after the May 2025 verdict, many students pivoted their career choices away from preparing for the judicial services. Now, since the eligibility requirement has been reduced to 1 year of practice at the bar, many students would once again be willing to write such an examination. However, the narrow window will not be sufficient for such candidates to prepare and thus appear confidently for the examinations, even if the states are successful in notifying or conducting the examinations within the transitional window. Examination might be a couple of days’ streak, maybe analogous to a sprint, but preparation is the name of perseverance, analogous to a marathon.
For more than two decades, i.e., from before the birth of the majority of Gen Z until the May 2025 verdict, eligibility never required any minimum years of practice at the bar. Many students enroll in three-year or five-year law courses, with the dream of becoming judicial officers. They wanted to dedicate their entire career to the judicial services. Many students enroll in LL.M. courses or take up jobs in the private or public sector after earning their LL.B. degrees, without enrolling as advocates with state bar councils. Many such students moonlight and prepare for the civil judges’ examinations simultaneously with their LL.M or employment.
The true transition would have been a complete departure from the practice-at-the-bar requirement for batches that enrolled before the August 2026 verdict, when the apex court finally stopped the pendulum of changing eligibility criteria. Students from various batches, once graduated in law, compete together in such examinations. Therefore, it is practically impossible to prescribe different eligibility for different batches. Such differential eligibility criteria will undermine the homogeneity of candidates' eligibility. It will further complicate the process.
A suitable solution would have been to implement the eligibility requirement of a minimum number of years of practice at the bar from a future date, with a wider transitional window. The window should remain open until a candidate who enrolled in a 3-year or 5-year LL.B. course after the August 2026 verdict has at least two attempts to write such examinations. Until then, no practice at the bar requirement should have been prescribed as an eligibility requirement. In the absence of such an arrangement, the transitional window will only be an illusion, offering only lip service to the aspiration of law graduates.
Irrational Retention of Vestigial One-Year Pre-Selection Practice At Bar As An Eligibility
After the May 2025 verdict, many students pivoted their careers towards other arenas. Some competitive and meritorious students got the opportunity to serve as Legal Managers, Officers, or In-house Counsels in public sector companies, including Navratnas, multinational companies, banks, and other private sector entities.
The full-time salaried employees are not allowed to carry an active license to practice at the bar. The Rules on Professional Standards, The Bar Council of India Rules, Part VI, Chapter 2, Rule 49 states-
“An advocate shall not be a full-time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practise, and shall, on taking up any such employment, intimate the fact to the Bar Council on whose roll his name appears and shall thereupon cease to practice as an advocate so long as he continues in such employment.”
Now, the selection of law graduates for such other jobs is a bane for them. After the narrow transitional period, they will not be able to aspire for their OG dream of becoming judicial officers. The changes in the eligibility policy are penalizing precisely the talent the judiciary needs to attract.
The other problem with a minimum of one year of practice at the bar is that it is a documentary requirement. In our society's bureaucratic red-tape culture, the question of whether the candidate has one year of practice at the bar is not relevant. In reality, it can be replaced with another question: whether the candidate has one year of practice at the bar, as per the papers. It is no brainer that such certificates could not measure anything beyond chamber affiliations and the ‘jugaad’ instinct of our social elites.
The August 2026 verdict substituted 2 of the 3 years of pre-recruitment practice at the bar requirement with two years of post-recruitment training and clerkship. The judgment contains a critical admission that the exposure and maturity expected of a judicial officer can be imparted after recruitment. If well-curated two-year institutional immersion and judicial clerkship can suitably substitute for two years of pre-selection practice at the bar, why cannot the remaining one year of pre-selection practice at the bar be similarly substituted?
The declaration to retain a one-year pre-selection practice at the bar lacks sound rationale and is unfair to talented aspirants. Moreover, further changes to the modalities of duration and design of the training curriculum to compensate for the remaining one-year pre-recruitment practice are merely a question of intent.
The Disadvantages To The Disadvantaged
The debate that such policy measures only add up to the existing miseries of the socio-economically disadvantaged sections is one-sided with a foregone conclusion. The issue of significance is the ignorance among crucial stakeholders regarding the rising fees at law schools, including the National Law Universities.
The above ignorance is coupled with the lack of financial safety nets during the initial years of practice at the bar. It adds to the ‘saga of misses’ in the fate of the country's budding legal talent. The condition is further aggravated by the profound psychological and financial burden of educational loans. The repayment of these loans encircles law graduates with fast-approaching deadlines. The moratorium period on such loans ends soon after a student completes their 3-year or 5-year law degree.
Conclusion
Despite the limitations of the August 2026 verdict, it is an improvement over the court's May 2025 verdict. The relaxations will benefit many law graduates. The reduction in the minimum years of practice at the bar from 3 to 1 is welcome. However, a more generous dilution, substituting entirely pre-recruitment practice at the bar with post-recruitment exposure and training, would not have closed the door of judicial services to many law graduates.
If, as Bhuyan, J., suggests, top academics can enrich the exercise of constitutional interpretation at the apex court, the author feels that young academic buds can contribute meaningfully to implementing such interpretations on the original side. The subordinate judiciary should not remain bereft of the advantages of diversity. The fresh energy, best practices and exposure from various professions within the legal domain should be brought to the subordinate judiciary. After all, all aspirants are law graduates and have internship experiences, as stipulated by the BCI, a mandatory requirement, at least on paper.
The author hereby presents the first proposal to be considered during the first periodic review of the outcomes of the changes brought by the August 2026 verdict. The proposal suggests analyzing the foregoing advantages of diversity, fresh energy, best practices, and exposure from various professions within the legal domain with respect to the functioning of the subordinate judiciary. The domain here includes young legal academicians and legal professionals working in the public and private sectors.
Gen Z might be accustomed to and capable of handling their partners' mood swings in their personal lives. Still, the pendulum of policy shifts in the eligibility criteria is an irresolvable challenge at the individual level, requiring structural changes. The issue is concerning, given the complex web of problems surrounding it, including pre-existing socio-economic constraints, apathy among authorities toward rising legal education fees, and poor remuneration during the initial years at the bar.
The expectations of Gen Z law graduates from the world’s most powerful judiciary, with broad shoulders, are uncompromising. A request is hereby put on record that at least the Supreme Court shall direct all the states to mandatorily notify one civil judges recruitment examination with generous vacancies before the conclusion of the transitional window.