If you are a fresh law graduate or a newly enrolled advocate eyeing an Assistant Public Prosecutor post, a rule requiring three years’ prior practice at the Bar keeps you out before you can even apply. A PIL now challenges that rule as arbitrary and unconstitutional, and the Delhi High Court has issued notice, seeking the government’s response.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has issued notice on a public interest litigation challenging the requirement of three years’ prior practice at the Bar for direct recruitment to the post of Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) in Delhi’s Directorate of Prosecution [Bhumika Trust v. Union of India and Others].
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia sought the response of the Union Government, the Delhi Government and Delhi’s Directorate of Prosecution.
What the plea challenges
The petition, filed by Bhumika Trust, seeks a declaration that the three-year practice requirement is unconstitutional and arbitrary, and challenges its application to the ongoing recruitment for 140 APP posts under an advertisement issued by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on September 10. The Trust’s grievance is that the condition operates to exclude otherwise qualified law graduates and newly enrolled advocates from even participating in the recruitment process, solely because they have not completed three years of practice at the Bar.
The challenge rests principally on Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality and equality of opportunity in public employment. While accepting that professional competence and preparedness are legitimate objectives for recruitment to the prosecutorial service, the plea argues that insisting on three years of prior Bar practice as an absolute threshold may not be the only way to achieve those objectives, and that an eligibility criterion which completely shuts out an otherwise qualified class must withstand scrutiny as to its necessity, rational nexus and proportionality, especially where less restrictive means are available.
Impact on candidates with disabilities
The Trust has also raised the effect of the eligibility condition on persons with benchmark disabilities. Merely reserving vacancies for such candidates, it argues, may not ensure substantive equality if an antecedent eligibility condition prevents otherwise qualified candidates from entering the selection process in the first place; the reservation is of little use to a candidate who is barred at the threshold.
The validity of the requirement, the plea contends, must be tested against whether the authorities possess material demonstrating the necessity of precisely three years’ prior practice; whether the requirement bears a rational relationship with the actual functions of an APP; whether less restrictive alternatives, such as structured induction training, probation, practical attachments or supervised prosecutorial training, were considered; and whether the exclusionary impact on fresh law graduates, newly enrolled advocates and candidates with disabilities was given due weight.
Why it matters
The case raises a question that recurs across public recruitment: when does an eligibility condition cross the line from a legitimate filter into an arbitrary barrier? A minimum-experience requirement is not, by itself, impermissible; the State is entitled to set standards to ensure that those it recruits are professionally prepared. But an eligibility bar that excludes an entire class of otherwise qualified candidates from even competing must, the plea argues, satisfy the tests of rational nexus and proportionality, that is, it must be genuinely connected to the demands of the job and not go further than necessary to achieve its object.
The proportionality argument turns on the availability of less restrictive alternatives. If professional preparedness can be secured through induction training, probation or supervised attachments after selection, rather than by demanding three years of practice before one may apply, then, on the petitioner’s case, the absolute pre-entry threshold is harder to justify. This mirrors a live debate in judicial-service recruitment, where the requirement of a minimum period of practice, its revival, and its application to ongoing selections have been the subject of significant litigation, including before the Supreme Court.
For candidates, the immediate stakes are practical: the outcome will bear on whether fresh law graduates and newly enrolled advocates, and candidates with disabilities affected by the same bar, can participate in the current recruitment for 140 APP posts. At this stage, nothing has been decided. The Court has only issued notice and sought the respondents’ replies; the constitutionality of the requirement, and its effect on the ongoing selection, will be determined after the government responds and the matter is heard.
Case Title: Bhumika Trust v. Union of India and Others
Bench: Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia, High Court of Delhi at New Delhi
Status: Notice issued; responses of the Union Government, the Delhi Government and the Directorate of Prosecution sought. Challenge to the three-year Bar-practice requirement for APP recruitment pending; no view expressed on merits.