SC asks HC to interview 12 selected candidates of DJS, 2014

The Supreme Court today gave a ray of hope to 12 unsuccessful candidates of 2014 Delhi Judicial Services examination, who were later declared successful in re-valuation conducted by the court-appointed Justice P V Reddi panel, by asking the Delhi High Court to interview them within four weeks.
"We request the Delhi High Court to hold the interview of 12 candidates within four weeks," a bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh said, adding that the selected candidates be informed through all "possible means".
The bench, which had earlier asked former apex court judge Justice Reddi to re-evaluate the answer sheets of nearly 650 unsuccessful candidates of the DJS examination, 2014, considered the interim report of the panel declaring 12 more candidates as successful.

It also said that the 12 candidates will be interviewed by the same board which had interviewed other successful candidates.
The court asked the Delhi High Court Registrar to ensure compliance of its direction and file a report by April 25 and fixed the PIL, filed by the Centre For Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), for further hearing on April 27.
The PIL alleged arbitrary evaluation of answer sheets in the judicial services examinations held in 2014.

Earlier, the court, on December 14, 2015, had asked Justice Reddi to re-evaluate the answer sheets of nearly 650 candidates within six weeks.
It, however, had made it clear that the appointment of already selected 15 candidates as judges would not be "touched".

Out of 659 candidates, who had qualified in preliminary and taken up the mains examination, only 15 persons were selected for the appointment after the interview against nearly 80 advertised vacancies.
Earlier, the court had said the selection of 15 successful
candidates of the DJS exam would remain.
On November 2, the bench had suggested to have a former apex court judge for rational re-evaluation of all the answer sheets of the Delhi judicial services examinations held in 2014.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for CPIL, had said that 659 students out of 9,033, who were declared successful in preliminary examination, took the main examination held on October 10 and 11 last year.

The CPIL also said, "The result of this Main Examination was declared on May 1 2015, almost 8 months after the exam was held. Surprisingly, only 15 students (13 from General Category and 2 from reserved category) have been selected for the interview for total 80 vacancies. That means a total of 98 per cent of the students failed and only 2 per cent managed to pass."
Bhushan had said that only 15 students have been called for the interview against 80 vacancies becomes "remarkable" as at least 68 candidates, who were not selected for the interview round, are "those who have already cleared judicial examinations of other States and most of them are sitting judges in their respective states".

CPIL had sought a direction to "quash the result of the Main Exam of the Delhi Judicial Service, 2014 declared on May one.