Madras High Court upholds 2013 District Judge selection, dismisses challenge to viva voce and to four sitting Judges' eligibility
A division bench of Justices Anita Sumanth and Mummineni Sudheer Kumar dismissed three writ petitions challenging the 2013 direct recruitment of 23 District Judges (Entry Level), holding that the Selection Committee's discretion was unimpeachable on the material placed and that allegations of suppressed antecedents and inadequate practice against four serving District Judges did not bear scrutiny.
The Madras High Court has brought the curtain down on a thirteen-year challenge to the 2013 direct recruitment of 23 District Judges (Entry Level) in Tamil Nadu. A division bench of Justices Anita Sumanth and Mummineni Sudheer Kumar dismissed all three writ petitions filed by unsuccessful aspirants N. Bharathirajan and A. Kannan, refusing to interfere with the Selection Committee's viva voce marking and rejecting specific eligibility and non-disclosure allegations levelled at four sitting District Judges who entered service in January 2014 under G.O.Ms.No. 5 of the Public (Special A) Department.
The petitions, instituted in 2013, 2014 and 2016, had moved between several benches before being heard as Specially Ordered matters. They were reserved on 20 February and pronounced on 28 April 2026, with neutral citation 2026:MHC:1721.
The recruitment grew out of a Tamil Nadu Public (Special A) Department notification dated 02.05.2013 inviting applications for 23 posts of District Judge (Entry Level). A three-member Selection Committee of senior Judges of the Court, constituted by the then Chief Justice, conducted a written examination on 06.07.2013 followed by viva voce. The provisional list went up on the High Court's website on 06.08.2013, and the successful candidates were appointed under the 02.01.2014 G.O. They have been in office ever since.
The viva-voce challenge: ranks moved, but on what evidence
Bharathirajan ranked 26 after the written test on a 150-mark paper, but ended at rank 67 in the final 100-mark merit list after scoring 5 out of 25 in the viva. Kannan moved from written rank 20 to final rank 73, having scored 4 out of 25 in the viva. Both petitioners argued that the viva voce had become the determinative criterion, vesting the Selection Committee with what they called “excessive power” to rearrange the merit list at its discretion.
The bench did not see it that way. Once a Selection Committee of three senior Judges has been formed, it observed, its discretion is normally not liable to interference unless serious and very valid concerns are raised. The petitioners' grievances were “vague and general,” with no concrete material putting the integrity of the question paper, the viva questions, or the marking in doubt.
It is not, the Court added, for unsuccessful candidates who participated in the selection to disparage the process without assigning concrete reasons. The petitioners' authorities — Ashok Kumar Yadav v. State of Haryana, State of Punjab v. Salil Sabhlok, Padma Sundara Rao v. State of Tamil Nadu and others — were found not to bear the weight pressed on them. The respondents' line of cases, particularly K. Appadurai and P. Senthil Kumaran (the latter confirmed by the Supreme Court in SLP), supported non-interference.
R8 and the unserved summons: a finding that had already attained finality
The most freighted of the four individual challenges was that against R8, D. Lingeswaran, accused of suppressing both a criminal case (Crime No. 16 of 2004 / CC No. 9617 of 2005 in the VII Metropolitan Magistrate, George Town) and a civil suit (OS No. 423 of 2012 in the District Munsif Court, Valliyur). The petitioner pointed to the police investigation eventually triggered by directions of the First Bench in 2015, and to a miscellaneous petition in Crl.M.P. No. 10056 of 2004 supposedly filed by R8 to intervene in the underlying criminal proceedings.
The bench found the path effectively closed. A previous division bench in S. Venkateswaran v. Government of Tamil Nadu, decided on 28.07.2016, had already examined the same criminal case on identical facts and held that R8 had not deliberately suppressed: the police enquiry conducted at his Tirunelveli permanent address could not have surfaced the case because the charge sheet was filed elsewhere, no summons had been served on him, the Investigating Officer had failed to apply his mind in the Final Report, and CC No. 9617 of 2005 was eventually withdrawn on 02.07.2017. That finding was unappealed and has attained finality.
On the miscellaneous petition relied on as proof of knowledge, the records contained only a memo of appearance executed by counsel — no Vakalathnama from R8. Criminal-side practice, the Court noted, permits counsel appearance on memo alone. On the civil suit at Valliyur, summons had been issued but returned unserved, and substituted service was effected only by publication; that does not amount to knowledge sufficient to trigger a disclosure obligation. The petition fails as against R8.
R18 and R27: what the 2013 Notification actually asked for
The eligibility attacks against R18 (A. Deepthi Arivunithi) and R27 (S. Sameena) turned on Clause 3(ii) of the 2013 Notification, which required seven years' practice as an Advocate as on the date of notification. The petitioner argued that neither had a practice worthy of the name, that R27 had been residing with her sister in Thiruvananthapuram from 2008, and that the certificates produced were paper compliance.
The bench read Clause 6 of the same Notification narrowly. The only requirement was a certificate from the Presiding Officer of the Court in which the candidate had practised, attesting length of practice. The 2013 Notification did not provide for any qualitative or quantitative cross-verification. Both R18 and R27 had produced certificates in the prescribed format. R18 had additionally placed an affidavit from Mrs. Sudha Ramalingam attesting to her chamber assistance, copies of nine orders in matters where she had appeared, legal notices issued by her, and case status of her matters — well beyond the bare requirement.
The bench acknowledged that ideally a bare certificate ought to be supplemented by additional materials, and noted that the High Court has since amplified these requirements in its 2023 District Judge Notification dated 01.07.2023. But it would not retrospectively re-read a 2013 Notification to demand more, particularly when the same condition applied to the petitioners themselves. As for the police enquiry on R27, the Court found nothing in the police material to contradict the Selection Committee's conscious decision — recorded in its notes and in the Registrar General's communication dated 17.10.2013 — that the disclosed civil litigation would not bar her selection. The challenge against R18 and R27 fails.
R22: an admitted omission, weighed against twelve years of service
R22, Abdul Khader, conceded the central fact: he had not disclosed in his application that he had been arrayed as accused in Crime No. 1891 of 2004 under Sections 147, 148, 341, 323 and 307 of the Indian Penal Code. He had obtained anticipatory bail in that matter and was acquitted in SC No. 34 of 2005 on 22.02.2005 — eight years before the 2013 application. Senior counsel Mr. Om Prakash argued the case was false, the candidate had disclosed the matter orally to the Selection Committee at the second interview, and the omission flowed from the long elapse of time and the acquittal.
The bench applied the framework from Avtar Singh v. Union of India (2016) 8 SCC 471. Where a conviction stands, the employer may cancel candidature; but where the candidate has been acquitted before applying, the employer must take a holistic view. The criminal case was a stale altercation, the acquittal had attained finality and the Court was unable to find moral turpitude or a heinous-or-serious-offence character in the matter, R22 had ranked fifth on his own merit, and he had served as a District Judge for twelve years since January 2014. One error of non-disclosure, the bench held, would not warrant compromising his entire service. The petition is dismissed against him as well.
Outcome
W.P. No. 23734 of 2013 and W.P. No. 9664 of 2014, filed by N. Bharathirajan, are dismissed. W.P. No. 12759 of 2016, filed by A. Kannan, is dismissed in entirety: as not maintainable against R5 to R7, R9 to R17, R19 to R21 and R23 to R26 for want of specific averments, and on merits against R8, R18, R22 and R27. There is no order as to costs. The Court has directed the Registrar General to place the petitioner's tabulation on alleged deficiencies in the 2023 District Judge Notification before the appropriate Committee, for consideration in ensuing selections, while clarifying these proceedings are not a PIL. Pending administrative complaints recorded against R8 are left to the appropriate Committee to decide on the administrative side, the writ proceedings no longer standing in their way.