50 per cent reservation in Judicial services in Bihar

The Bihar Government on 27 December 2016 approved 50 per cent reservation in all judicial services for candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes, Extremely Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The decision was taken during a cabinet meeting. The reservation will be applicable in both Superior Judicial Services and Subordinate Judicial Services.

Key Highlights

• The Cabinet stated that the aspiring candidates belonging to EBC will get 21 per cent reservation and those belonging to OBC will get 12 per cent reservation.
• In addition, candidates falling in the Scheduled Castes category will have 16 per cent reservation and those in the Scheduled Tribe category will get 1 per cent reservation in all judicial services under the state.
• Aside from this, 35 per cent ‘horizontal reservation’ will be provided to women and 1 per cent reservation to those who are differently abled.

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According to the Principal Secretary of General Administration department, D.S Gangwar, the order follows the Supreme Court ruling in the State of Bihar versus Dayanand Singh case and was passed after due consultation with the Bihar Public Service Commission and the Patna High Court.

In October 2016, a bench of Supreme Court Justices comprising Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre had given the Bihar government and the Patna High court time till 1 January 2017 to complete the work of providing reservation to the backward classes in the State’s judicial services.

Furthermore, the bench had set 30 June 2017 as the deadline for the state to fill up existing vacancies in the state’s judicial services.

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Earlier, while subordinate services had 27 per cent reservation there was no quota in superior judicial services. Currently, there are around 1100 vacancies in both categories.

Superior judicial services include additional and district judges and subordinate services include judicial magistrates and munsif magistrates.