UP JUDICIAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION Vs. STATE OF UP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Sri Sandeep Dixit and Sri. Sanjay Bhasin, Senior Advocates assisted by Sri V. S. Ojha, Sri. Amarjeet Singh Yadav and Sri Purushottam Advocates, the learned Counsel for the petitioners, Sri. Rajesh Tiwari, the learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State-respondent and Sri Gaurav Mehrotra, the learned Counsel for the opposite party no. 2, i.e. High Court of Judicature at Allahabad.

(2.) The instant writ petition has been filed by the U. P. Judicial Services Association and 39 others. Briefly stated, the petitioners case is that presently the petitioner nos. 2 to 40 are working on the post of Civil Judge (Senior Division) / Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate / Chief Judicial Magistrate. The year of recruitment of each of the petitioners, the dates of their promotion on the post of Civil Judge (Senior Division) and the respective places of their present posting has been given in the petition in a tabular form. It has further been stated in the writ petition that the services of petitioner nos. 2 to 40 were confirmed on 11/8/2021.

(3.) On 17/12/2020, this Court had issued an advertisement inviting applications for filling up 98 vacancies of the Higher Judicial Service for the recruitment year 2020 through direct recruitment from amongst the eligible Advocates under 25% quota provided in Rule 6 (ii) of the U.P. Higher Judicial Service Rule 1975 (which will hereinafter referred to as the 'Rules of 1975'), out of which 87 were current vacancies and 11 were unfilled vacancies of reserved category of previous recruitment year. The petitioners have stated that as the quota of direct recruitment as provided in Rule 6 (ii) of the Rules of 1975 is 25%, a total of 348 vacancies would be available in the recruitment year 2020 for U. P. Higher Judicial Services and, therefore, after deducting 11 posts of backlog quota from 65% of posts i.e. 226 posts, a total of 215 posts out of 348 vacancies of Higher Judicial Services, which occurred in the recruitment year 2020, are to be filled up by promotion from amongst the Civil Judges (Senior Division).