The Supreme Court on Friday modified its May 2025 verdict by reducing to one year the earlier mandatory requirement of three-year legal practice for law graduates for taking entry level judicial service examinations. However, the selected candidates will have to undergo training at the judicial academy and a further one year clerkship, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices AG Masih and K Vinod Chandran said in a split decision of 2:1 while dismissing the review petition.
The bench said that candidates appearing in judicial exams notified between May 25, 2025 and March 31, 2027 are eligible regardless of prior experience. It said such candidates, upon selection,will be appointed only as trainee judicial officers for one year and they would have to undergo a further period of one year structured clerkship. On May 20 last year, the top court had barred fresh law graduates from appearing in the entry-level judicial services examination, fixing a minimum three-year law practi
