The Arbitrary Interview: When Viva Voce Becomes a Judicial Lottery
There’s something deeply unsettling about a system where a candidate’s entire career hinges on a 10-minute conversation. The recent Supreme Court hearing on the Maharashtra Higher Judicial Service recruitment has brought this issue into sharp focus, and it’s a conversation we desperately need to have.
The Numbers Don’t Lie—But They Also Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Let’s start with the facts: 42 vacancies, 2,751 applicants, and only 13 selected. One candidate secured the third-highest marks in the written exam but was eliminated for falling two marks short in the viva voce. What makes this particularly fascinating is how this isn’t an isolated incident. Across India, judicial service recruitments often result in a fraction of vacancies being filled, leaving us with a glaring question: Is the system designed to select the best candidates, or is it inadvertently filtering out talent?
Personally, I think the reliance on arbitrary interview cut-offs is a symptom of a larger problem—a system that prioritizes subjective assessments over objective merit. The viva voce, while intended to evaluate temperament and communication skills, often becomes a black box where bias, inconsistency, and even luck play a disproportionate role.
The Viva Voce: A Necessary Evil or a Flawed Tool?
Chief Justice Surya Kant’s observation that temperament and body language are crucial for judicial roles is undeniable. But here’s the catch: How do we ensure that these qualities are assessed fairly and consistently? The current system, with its rigid 40% cut-off, seems more like a lottery than a merit-based selection.
What many people don’t realize is that the viva voce isn’t just about answering questions correctly—it’s about fitting into an unspoken mold. For women candidates and those from marginalized communities, this can be an insurmountable barrier. The fact that two of the three petitioners were women and one belonged to the Scheduled Caste category raises uncomfortable questions about systemic bias.
The Broader Implications: A System in Crisis
If you take a step back and think about it, the judicial recruitment process is a microcosm of India’s larger employment crisis. Law graduates are flooding the market, but the pathways to meaningful careers remain narrow and opaque. The Supreme Court’s concern about the minimal output of recruitment exercises is spot on—we’re spending public money and time on a process that fails to deliver.
This raises a deeper question: Should we be rethinking the entire framework? Advocate Prashant Bhushan’s argument that interview cut-offs give boards arbitrary power is hard to ignore. When a candidate’s fate is decided by a few marks in a subjective test, it undermines the credibility of the entire system.
A Detail That I Find Especially Interesting
CJI Kant’s suggestion to entrust answer sheet evaluation to academics or retired experts instead of overburdened judicial officers is a game-changer. It’s a practical solution that could improve the quality of assessments while reducing the workload on judges. What this really suggests is that the problem isn’t just about viva voce—it’s about the entire ecosystem of judicial recruitment being outdated and inefficient.
Looking Ahead: Can We Fix This?
The Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Bombay High Court to sympathetically consider the petitioners’ cases is a step in the right direction. But it’s a band-aid solution. The larger issue of whether minimum qualifying marks should exist in interviews at all needs urgent attention.
From my perspective, the solution lies in creating a more transparent, standardized, and inclusive system. Perhaps a uniform national framework for judicial recruitment, as hinted by the Court, could be the answer. Or maybe we need to reduce the weightage of viva voce and focus more on written exams and practical assessments.
Final Thoughts
The case of Ajaykumar Shyamkishor Tripathi and his fellow petitioners is more than just a legal battle—it’s a call to reevaluate how we select the guardians of justice. In a country where access to justice is already a challenge, we cannot afford a system that arbitrarily excludes talented individuals.
Personally, I think this is an opportunity to rethink not just judicial recruitment, but the entire culture of assessments in India. Because when a 10-minute interview can overshadow years of hard work, something is fundamentally wrong. And it’s time we fixed it.
