Bench Clerk's Service Not Practice at the Bar for Civil Judge Eligibility: Supreme Court Dismisses Plea

The petitioner joined Odisha's District Judiciary as a clerk in 2012, became a Bench Clerk in 2019 and completed her LL.B. in 2021; she cleared the written stages of the 2024 Civil Judge examination but was not selected (para 2). All India Judges' Association (20.05.2025) restored a three-year practice requirement, counting time as a Law Clerk (para 3). Bhumika Trust (21.08.2026) modified it: a deemed year of practice for recruitment notified up to 31.03.2027, and one year of actual, certified practice thereafter, followed by training and clerkship after selection (paras 7-8). She sought recognition of her service as practice (para 9).

Endorsing Bhumika Trust, the Court held that the petitioner did not meet its conditions (para 11). The three-year requirement has been staggered into one year of practice at the Bar before the examination, a year of training at the State Judicial Academy and a year of Law Clerkship; each imparts a different kind of experience (para 12). Practice is the only component that precedes the examination and the only one that shows a candidate the courts from the side of the Bar; other experience was treated as practice only as a one-time transitional measure (para 13). The Bhumika Trust direction on the source and certification of practice does not carry over the earlier credit for clerkship, which would duplicate a component the candidate must undergo anyway (para 14). In any event, a bench clerk's duties are more ministerial and lack a Law Clerk's close association with adjudication; the distinction rests on substance, not on the name of the post (para 15).