BCs, minorities cry foul over new judges

The list which was formalised after a written test and an interview includes four Brahmins, two Lingayats and a scheduled caste, leaving out the Vokkaligas, other backward classes and the minorities in the State.

Sources in the High Court told The Indian Express that in a recent Full Court meeting of all the High Court judges, differences cropped up with a few judges expressing their “resentment” at what they saw as want of adequate representation to the backwards classes and the minorities.

The State Law Department is tight-lipped about the developments. “We have nothing to do with the list. Even the Law Minister has not seen it. The list has been send to the Chief Secretary for approval before the Governor signs it,” said Additional Law Secretary Robinson D’Souza.

The highly placed sources in the High Court, however, refuted all talks about controversy surrounding the selection of district judges. “It is unfortunate that communal and castist feelings are injected into the selection of judges. It has always been based on merit,” a High Court administrative official told this newspaper.

But that the selection process had not met with universal approval was evident from the observations of a few lawyer candidates who failed to make it to the post of district judges. One of them, who comes from the Kuruba community, said that he “failed to understand how I could not make it eventhough two High Court judges vociferously supported me… The judges themselves told that I had done well in both the written test and the interview. But when it came to selection my name was not there,” he said.

Sources in the High Court said many scheduled castes and other backward class candidates could not make it as the High Court took the stance that a backward caste/class candidate would lose the preference if he was an income tax assessee. “But we still have maintained the 18 per cent reservation for the scheduled castes in the selection,” they said.

The discontent about the selection process of district judges could not have come at a more inappropriate time as the lower courts in the State are struggling to find hands. Presently, posts of 30 district judges are vacant in the State, while 60 vacancies to the post of Munsiff is lying vacant even though the recruitment process was completed almost three months back.