The Supreme Court of India has issued a notice to the Rajasthan High Court regarding the recruitment process for District Judges. This action comes after a writ petition challenged the High Court's decision to start a new recruitment drive without first resolving the pending issues related to the 2020 selection process.

A bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan issued the notice to the Registrar General of the Rajasthan High Court. Advocate-on-Record Namit Saxena, representing the petitioners, informed the Court that in July 2024, the Supreme Court had directed the early disposal of the challenge concerning the 2020 recruitments. However, the High Court proceeded to issue a new recruitment notification for 2025-26 without concluding the earlier matter.

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The petitioners, who were candidates in the 2020 examination, pointed out that 85 vacancies were announced at that time. Although 788 candidates took the Main (Written) Examination, only four were declared successful and were called for interviews.

Initially, the petitioners approached the Supreme Court to challenge the selection process. On November 17, 2022, the Supreme Court directed them to approach the Rajasthan High Court instead. Following this, on April 18, 2023, the High Court ordered an inquiry by Justice Govind Mathur, a retired judge of the Rajasthan High Court and former Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court, to review the evaluation of answer sheets.

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Justice Mathur submitted his report, concluding that no irregularities were found in the marking of candidates. The petitioners, however, filed objections against the report, and the High Court submitted a reply defending the findings.

On February 14, 2024, the High Court instructed the Examination Cell to form an Expert Committee, composed of respected professors and legal experts. This committee was tasked with randomly picking 20 copies of each paper for a confidential evaluation process.

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Quoting the Court:

"The Expert Committee shall maintain complete secrecy and fairly evaluate the selected copies to ensure transparency in the examination process."

The administrative side of the High Court challenged this February 14 order before the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the challenge on July 9, 2024.

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Now, the petitioners have returned to the Supreme Court, alleging that the new recruitment notification aims to sidestep the February 14 order. They argued that starting a fresh recruitment process without finalizing the issues related to the 2020 recruitment was unjust. Moreover, the 2024 notification did not accurately determine the number of vacancies, and it was stated that the vacancies would be subject to the outcome of the February 2024 directions.

Case Details: NARENDRA MOHAN vs. THE REGISTRAR (EXAMINATION), RAJASTHAN HIGH COURT & ANR|W.P.(C) No. 000402 / 2025