Most people know that the competition for judiciary exams is very high, but how high is it exactly?
I do not want to scare you, but help you to forge the right mindset.
Otherwise, you will be like the proverbial ostrich who buries its head in the sand when there is a storm, and does not prepare for what it needs to.
The judiciary exam is one of the most difficult exams in the country.
What is the pass rate like? 99.5% of people who appear in this exam fail.
You have to be in the top 0.5% to make it.
How did we get this number?
- In 2023, 50,837 students attempted the UP judiciary exam, competing for merely 303 vacancies – a 0.6% pass rate.
- In 2023, 13631 attempted the Chhattisgarh judiciary exam, competing for merely 48 vacancies, a 0.4% pass rate.
- In 2022, 14957 candidates appeared for the Delhi Judicial Services Examination out of which only 110 qualified for the position of Civil Judge Junior Division – a 0.7% pass rate.
- If I exclude the reserved seats, the actual number of vacancies will be lower.
- In a best case scenario, you may have a 1% pass rate.
The situation is the same in other states as well.
This is why you need to prepare accordingly.
The exam is also extremely difficult – if a candidate fails to achieve minimum marks in the judicial services exam, the seat will lie vacant.
For example, in the last three years, at least four major states in India were not able to successfully fill all the judiciary seats that were advertised.
This was despite the fact that the number of students who appeared was more than 50 times the number of seats available.
Why did the seats go vacant?
Because the judiciary exam also has minimum cut-off marks.
If a candidate does not score at least the minimum cut-off, the seat will go vacant, even if you are otherwise eligible based on your rank.
Can you imagine this crazy situation?
Hundreds of seats are wasted every year, the country is suffering.
There are not enough smart people preparing properly or putting in the hard work to become a judge.
Yet they can’t clear the cut off. Do you find that insane?
This is despite the fact that there are so many coaching classes for judiciary preparation!
What does this tell you about the candidates’ level of preparation?
It clearly points to the fact that many candidates do not even prepare seriously enough to clear the minimum cut-offs.
Even though all these coaching centres are admitting thousands of aspirants, whose parents are paying 2 lakhs+ per person for admission in judiciary coaching!
Everyone wants to be a judge, they even write the exams. But they don’t prepare enough so nobody can be selected.
Many candidates prepare half-heartedly, relying on the comforting idea that if they don’t clear now, they can clear it in a 2nd or 3rd attempt.
These people will not clear the exam and eventually give up.
How many do you think will spend even 6 months seriously preparing?
- Most of them just filled the form as it is a ‘good option’, some people are giving it because they can’t say no to parents, some are trying their luck, others had to fill because their cousin filled it too.
- Some people start seriously and then get distracted. They may not even show up at the exam hall.
- A lot of good people who could crack the exam give up midway because they face problems and do not have the necessary patience.
- Apart from the humongous amount of reading, writing and studies that are required, you need focus, patience and the ability to deal with that tremendous uncertainty.
- A lot of people experience this as a crisis – so much to study, so much uncertainty, so much discipline, no guarantee of success, high failure rate – many people stop even after they start.
- Most people who could otherwise crack the judiciary exam get scared just by looking at how much work is there and how much uncertainty they have to deal with.
- At the end of the day, there may be a thousand people who really really want it, and will be preparing hard. Your competition is only with them, he said.
- There are not too many people who seriously prepare for the judiciary exam, finish the syllabus and come actually prepared to win.
- Even those who prepare very hard, including college toppers and coaching toppers, fail because they prepare in the wrong direction!
- Many people are attempting the exam a 2nd, 3rd or umpteenth time. They are already showing up to battle with destroyed confidence. They were working with a senior or doing something else to justify their loss of many years of time. They are unable to give their best to it.
As you see, there are many people who write the exam with half-way preparation, and they are not really in the running.
Even larger number of people make a lot of common mistakes.
When you think like that, the competition does not seem so extreme for someone who prepares consistently & in the right direction, and is determined to win.
It is not I who is saying this alone.
Once, when Ramanuj posted about how many people write judiciary exams and how few people ever make it, this is what a retired district and sessions judge said about it:
A retired civil judge himself admitted this reality!
The reality is that state judiciaries are finding it hard to fill up their seats – as you saw above.
They can’t find enough people who are serious enough to meet the cut off.
Those who are willing to prepare, you should know that serious competition is very low, especially if you have the right guidance.
That is one reason LawSikho decided to enter this market.
Firstly, it is a privilege to train the future judges of our country.
Secondly, we know there is so much to be done. The state of affairs in judiciary coaching is awfully bad.
Next, there is a huge uncertainty and unpredictability for candidates who are attempting the exam.
- You may want to become a judge in a particular state, but vacancies may not be released every year due to one reason or another (although now we have a tsunami of vacancies ahead of us in all states, still nobody can say something won’t go wrong in a state in a certain year!).
For example, in Delhi, in 2019, there were 45 seats, whereas in 2022 there were 123 seats – no exam was held in 2020 and 2021. In 2023 – 53 vacancies were notified.
You may need to wait for a year or more before you can attempt again.
- Also, in some years, the number of seats may be very low, increasing effective competition drastically and making the odds more difficult for you.
For example, in 2021, there were only 270 vacancies in Madhya Pradesh, but in 2023 there were 138.
- Then, there is a maximum age limit. You must crack the exam before you hit the maximum age limit fixed for your state, which is mostly 35 years for lower judicial services like in Telangana, except for Rajasthan (40 years) and Haryana (42 years).
- There are some further relaxations for 5 years for SC/ST/OBC/PwD candidates/ex-servicemen and their dependents, and some other categories of candidates.
- If you are above the prescribed age limit, it makes sense to attempt the higher judicial services exam. The syllabus is usually very similar, except for more focus on practical aspects. We can help those of you who are interested in preparation for higher judicial services as well.
So you need to pick the right states and also have backup options in place that ensure that you are successful, one way or another.
It’s not easy.
How many of you have experienced something like this? Tell us in the chat.
Do you want to change this situation?
The good news is that there is going to be an unprecedented increase of vacancies on the cards.
Over and on top of that, more and more vacancies are released every year!
India does not have enough judges – we need 50,066 more Judges to clear the backlog of 3.7 crores cases that are pending.
The 120th Law Commission report stated that India needs 50 judges per 1 million population to adequately meet the litigation demands of this country
This is also important to climb the Ease of Doing Business index rankings issues by the World Bank, which is an economic priority of the government.
At approx. 1.3 billion population, we require 69000 Judges to meet the requirement. We currently only have around 20,000.
Every year, the Supreme Court increases the ‘sanctioned strength’ keeping the target of 50 judges per million.
In the last ten years, the sanctioned strength has increased by 39% adding a whopping 6885 seats to be filled by the eligible candidates.
As of today, 5850 existing seats lie vacant (about 25%) as per the current ‘sanctioned strength’ of High Court and lower court judges.
If the sanctioned strength of the courts are increased at the same rate as they have for the last ten years then, India will need to have a sanctioned strength of around 35,000 by 2030.
Therefore, we will need more than 15,000 additional judges by 2030 to meet the sanctioned strength of the future.
This number will go up all the way to 50,066 to meet the requirement for judges as per the 120th Law Commission report in the coming years.
So for people who do the real work with integrity, focus and proper strategy, SUCCESS IS GUARANTEED – one way or other.
You don’t have to believe us. By the time this bootcamp is over, you will see so much evidence that you will know this in your heart and soul.
You cannot fail if you prepare the right way. That’s all.
Do you want to explore with us what that RIGHT WAY is?
We will share the techniques and strategy in this bootcamp.