New Delhi: Amid allegations of favouritism in the Delhi Judicial Services (DJS) exam conducted last year, records show that at least 65 sitting judicial officers from 11 states failed the exam.
The latest revelations have raised serious questions about the evaluation process in the exam.
The DJS exam has three rounds — written preliminary test, written main test and the viva voce. The preliminary round was organised on 1 June, 2014 and the written main exam was organised on 10 and 11 October 2014. The results were decalred on May 1 this year.
Only 15 out of the 659 candidates, who appeared for the exam, were declared successful.
The list of unsuccessful candidates included 10 toppers who had held first or second rank in their states as well as some who had cleared the judicial services exams in more than one state. Six were the toppers of the judicial services exams in their states and four others had held second rank.
Some of the candidates who had failed to clear exams in their states were declared successful.
Reports said that only 14 out of 549 general category candidates who sat the Delhi Judicial Service main exam in October 2014, obtained over 50% marks in the written and oral exam – attaining passing marks for recruitment to Delhi's lower judicial services.
Union Law Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda has asked Delhi High Court Chief Justice G.Rohini to look into the allegations of “corruption, favouritism and nepotism”
In his letter written last week, Gowda pointed out that the department of justice in his ministry has received several complaints that kin of sitting judges of the Delhi high court were allegedly favoured in the examination held last year.
He said as per allegations, judges of the high court were involved in the examination process and the kin of sitting judges qualified the test. Gowda is learnt to have named the candidates who qualified in the examinations held last year.
The department of justice usually writes to Registrars of high courts about allegations of corruption, “but this time the chief justice was also informed,” said a senior ministry official.
The petitions addressed to the law ministry had alleged that RTI queries regarding the examination process remained partially answered. The petitioners have demanded that 660 candidates who had appeared in the test be re-evaluated.
In its RTI reply to a DJS aspirant, the Delhi HC stated that neither was there a fixed criteria for marking the answers, nor had the court prescribed any model answers. The RTI reply, dated May 25, from the High Court Public Information Officer H K Arora, said marks were awarded to each candidate based on his or her performance.
