- (1.) The two petitioners, who are candidates for the U.P. Higher Judicial Service Examination-2018 have filed this petition against the order dated 28.11.2018 rejecting their candidature and for seeking a direction to permit them to participate in the process of the said examination despite the fact that they are in full time employment as Law Officers with the State Bank of India (in short SBI) and Punjab National Bank (PNB) respectively.
(2.) Sri. Tarun Verma, learned counsel for the petitioners at the very outset stated that he is pressing the writ petition only on behalf of petitioner No. 1 and the name of petitioner No. 2 may be treated as deleted. In other words, the petition remains on behalf of petitioner No. 1 alone.
(3.) It is admitted that the petitioner is a Scheduled Tribe candidate who did his LLB from Banaras Hindu University in 2010.He is enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Delhi and is working as Law Officer with the SBI. After, he got himself enrolled on 8.10.2010 with the Bar Council of Delhi, he started practicing in district courts at Rohini and got himself registered as the member of Rohini Bar Association. He practiced as such from 8.10.2010 till 6.10.2014. He took up full time employment on 7.10.2014 with the SBI as Law Officer. The petitioner never surrendered his license to practice and it was never suspended despite information of employment to the Bar Council. During his employment with the SBI he appeared in courts and provided legal assistance to senior counsel of the Bank at Allahabad and Lucknow in the matters relating to Bank. He had appeared on behalf of the Bank before the Debt Recovery Tribunal/Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal. In short, he regularly acted/pleaded before the various courts/tribunals on behalf of the Bank while in its service. The guidelines/circulars of the Reserve Bank of India permit the Law Officers of the Bank to participate in legal proceedings before the courts. Thus, the petitioner never ceased to practice law before the courts despite full time employment with the Bank. The petitioner while working as Law Officer with the Bank was not called upon to do any work which may be inconsistent with the legal profession/practice as an advocate.;