Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday is learnt to have lifted the stay order on the recruitment of civil judges for different lower courts in the state who qualified the West Bengal Judicial Services Exam, 2022. The single bench of Justice Arindam Mukherjee dismissed multiple pleas which had challenged the conduct of the exams.
The bench is learnt to have observed that there is absolutely no flaw in the recruitment procedure by the WBPSC and hence the stay on recruitment has been lifted. Lifting of the stay order will pave the way for the appointment of civil judges in the state for the first time since 2022, and will thus reduce the burden on the state’s existing judicial infrastructure.
The preliminary examination for the candidates for the 2022 Judiciary Bench was conducted in March 2023.
The main examination followed in May 2023 and finally the interviews were held in April 2024. Even after the final list of selected candidates was published by the West Bengal Public Service Commission (WBPSC) in May 2024, appointments to the various posts were not made due to petitions filed before the High Court, challenging the conduct of the examinations.
One of the petitioners was a candidate from the Other Backward Class (OBC) category who challenged the recruitment process stating that reservation rules in the said recruitment were not
followed by the WBPSC.
The last stay order was passed by the High Court on December 16, 2024.