Orissa HC Refuses Interim Relief to Advocates Challenging 1 April Cut-Off in OJS Recruitment Rules
A Division Bench declined to let two advocates provisionally sit the Odisha Judicial Service exam while their challenge to the 1 April practice cut-off date remains pending.
The High Court of Orissa at Cuttack, in a Division Bench order dated 27 May 2026, refused to grant interim relief to two advocates who sought provisional permission to participate in the Odisha Judicial Service (OJS) examination for the recruitment year 2024–25. The petitioners had challenged Rule 18(1)(a) of the Odisha Superior Judicial Service and Odisha Judicial Service Rules, 2007, which fixes 1 April of the recruitment year as the cut-off date for reckoning the minimum three years of practice required for eligibility. The bench, comprising Justice Manash Ranjan Pathak and Justice Sibo Sankar Mishra, dismissed the interlocutory application and listed the writ petition for final hearing on 6 July 2026 along with five connected matters.
The Dispute Before the Court
The petitioners, Amrita Das and another, filed W.P.(C) No.14928 of 2026 challenging the amended Rule 18(1)(a) of the Odisha Judicial Service Rules, 2007. The rule requires that a candidate must have completed three years of practice as an advocate calculated as on 1 April of the recruitment year. The petitioners argued that this cut-off date is arbitrary and that eligibility ought instead to be reckoned as on the date of submission of the application.
The advertisement in question was issued on 30 April 2026 for 78 vacancies pertaining to the recruitment year 2024–25. Because the last date for submission of applications was imminent and the main writ petition would take time to be heard, the petitioners filed I.A. No.8984 of 2026 seeking a direction that Opposite Party No.2 — the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) — provisionally permit them to apply, subject to the final outcome of the writ petition.
Senior Advocates Budhadev Routray and Milan Kanungo appeared for the petitioners. The Advocate General, Pitambar Acharya, appeared for the State. Senior Advocate Gautam Mishra appeared for the High Court of Orissa as Opposite Party No.2, and Senior Advocate P.K. Mohanty appeared for the OPSC.
The Legal Issue: Validity of the 1 April Cut-Off
The core challenge is to the prescription in Rule 18(1)(a) that three years of practice must be completed as on 1 April of the recruitment year. The petitioners contended that this is contrary to settled service jurisprudence, under which eligibility is ordinarily reckoned either as on the date of advertisement or the date of application.
The Advocate General, in an unusual posture, agreed with the petitioners. He pointed to the Supreme Court's judgment in Rajnish K.V. v. K. Deepak, reported in 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2196, where rules for appointment of District Judges and Additional District Judges were framed prescribing seven years of qualifying practice to be calculated from the date of enrolment to the “date of application”. He submitted that no such cut-off date was fixed in those rules, and that most States which framed rules pursuant to the Supreme Court's directions in All India Judges Association v. Union of India had not prescribed a fixed cut-off date. He identified Odisha, Kerala, and Chhattisgarh as States where such a cut-off had been incorporated.
Senior Advocate Gautam Mishra, appearing for the High Court of Orissa, pushed back on the State's stance. He submitted that Rule 18(1)(a) was framed by the State Government in consultation with the High Court pursuant to Article 234 of the Constitution of India, which governs recruitment of judicial officers other than District Judges, and that the rule was notified after Cabinet approval. He characterised the Advocate General's submission as a personal view inconsistent with the High Court's institutional position.
How the Bench Reasoned on the Interim Prayer
The bench declined to enter the merits of the constitutional challenge at the interim stage and instead focused on whether provisional participation in the examination should be permitted pending final hearing.
Senior Advocate Gautam Mishra relied on two Supreme Court decisions to resist the interim prayer. In Guru Nanak Dev University v. Parminder Kr. Bansal, reported in (1993) 4 SCC 401, the Supreme Court cautioned that courts should not embarrass academic authorities by taking over their functions and that admissions cannot be ordered without regard to eligibility. In Secretary, UPSC v. S. Krishna Chaitanya, reported in (2011) 14 SCC 227, the Supreme Court held that an interim order should not be of such a nature that the petition is effectively finally allowed at the interlocutory stage, and that courts should avoid directing authorities to permit candidates to take examinations without first ascertaining whether the candidate had a right to do so.
The bench identified seven specific considerations that weighed against granting interim relief.
The recruitment process was being conducted strictly under the existing rules as presently in force. The vacancies pertained to the year 2024–25, and under the rules currently holding the field, the petitioners were not eligible to apply for those posts. The bench observed that once the game has started, the rules of the game cannot be changed midstream.
Accepting the petitioners' position would create two different cut-off dates within the same recruitment process — one for age eligibility and another for the period of practice — which the bench found problematic. There was also uncertainty about the position of fence-sitters who might claim similar benefits if interim relief were granted.
The OPSC had pointed out that the entire process was being conducted online and that the eligibility criterion of three years' practice as on 1 April 2025 had already been embedded in the online application system. Accepting applications from the petitioners by way of an interim order would not be technically or logistically feasible without opening the process to all similarly placed candidates, potentially creating a chaotic situation.
The bench also took note of the petitioners' position in life. They were described as young advocates with approximately twenty years of remaining eligibility to appear in future examinations. The next recruitment process was expected to commence within approximately eight months, and the petitioners would be eligible to participate in it. The inconvenience caused was therefore temporary and did not irreversibly prejudice them.
On the merits of the cut-off date itself, the bench offered a brief observation without deciding the constitutional question. It noted that the Supreme Court in All India Judges Association had directed that three years of practice be reckoned from the date of provisional enrolment or registration with the State Bar Council, but had not prescribed any upper cut-off date. The High Court of Orissa had fixed 1 April as the cut-off by reference to the start of the recruitment year, which runs from 1 April to 31 March of the succeeding year. The bench found that the Advocate General's submission that there was no rationale for the 1 April cut-off was not justified in light of this explanation.
The bench also noted that the vacancy for which the advertisement was issued pertained to the year 2024–25, and that the petitioners had not challenged the year of recruitment itself. Since the petitioners did not possess three years of experience in 2024, they were in any case not qualified to participate in that recruitment cycle.
On the broader principle, the bench held that fixation of a cut-off date is an executive prerogative falling within the domain of policy decisions. Judicial review for altering such a date is restricted unless the fixation is palpably arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, or mala fide. The bench reiterated that a recruiting authority cannot change eligibility rules or a cut-off date midway through a selection process, as doing so would violate Article 14 of the Constitution by unfairly advantaging or disqualifying candidates who had already invested time and effort in the examination.
Outcome
The Division Bench dismissed I.A. No.8984 of 2026 and declined to pass any interim order. The writ petition W.P.(C) No.14928 of 2026 has been listed for final hearing on 6 July 2026 along with five connected writ petitions: W.P.(C) No.14110 of 2026, W.P.(C) No.14498 of 2026, W.P.(C) No.14521 of 2026, W.P.(C) No.14684 of 2026, and W.P.(C) No.16156 of 2026.