Last verified: 18 June 2026<\/p>\n
India’s courts are carrying 5.39 crore pending cases. That figure, current to 31 December 2025, is not an abstraction. It is the daily reality of a litigant who files a property dispute and waits years for a first hearing, of an undertrial whose bail plea sits in a queue, of a small business chasing a cheque-bounce recovery that should have taken months. The subordinate courts alone hold roughly 4.8 crore of those cases, and they are doing it while running at about 21% judge vacancy. India has around 15 judges for every 10 lakh people. The Law Commission’s recommendation was 50.<\/p>\n
Which is exactly why the Delhi Judicial Services Exam 2026 matters: every Civil Judge selected is one fewer gap in a system straining under its own backlog. This is not a routine government recruitment. It is the front line of how quickly an ordinary person gets justice in the capital.<\/p>\n
The exam is conducted by the Delhi High Court, and it recruits Civil Judges (Junior Division) into what is formally called the Delhi Judicial Service. The role sits at the entry point of the district judiciary, the courts where most Indians actually encounter the legal system. And 2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal cycle, for two reasons that rarely appear together on the same coaching page. The first is sustained recruitment pressure: with one in five subordinate-court seats lying empty, the demand for fresh judges is not slowing down. The second is a once-in-a-generation syllabus reset.<\/p>\n
Here’s what makes this cycle genuinely different. For the first time, aspirants are preparing under three brand-new criminal codes. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) has replaced the Indian Penal Code. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) has replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure. And the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) has replaced the Indian Evidence Act. These are not minor amendments. They are full statutory replacements that landed mid-prep-cycle, and they have left a generation of aspirants asking the single most-Googled judiciary question of the year: should I study IPC or BNS? Most coaching syllabus tables still list the old codes. That gap, between what is published and what is actually law, is where many serious candidates are quietly losing time.<\/p>\n
So who is this for? Whether you’re a final-year LL.B. student mapping a five-year career or a practising advocate watching the 32-year age clock tick down, this guide gives you the verified 2026 picture. Eligibility. The three-stage pattern. The new-codes mapping no one else lays out cleanly. Salary. Cut-offs. And a realistic prep plan built around how the marks actually fall, not how they look on a brochure.<\/p>\n
The Delhi Judicial Services Exam 2026, conducted by the Delhi High Court, recruits Civil Judges (Junior Division) through three stages: a qualifying Prelims (200 marks, objective), a Mains (850 marks, four descriptive papers) and a Viva-voce (150 marks). Eligibility requires an LL.B. and enrolment, or eligibility for enrolment, as an advocate, with a maximum age of 32.<\/p>\n\n
That is the headline. The rest of this guide unpacks each piece, flags every 2026 figure that is not yet officially confirmed, and tells you what to do with the information. Let’s start with what the exam actually is.<\/p>\n\n