Judges are Paid Well

New Delhi, June 2 -- After finishing my LLB in 2004 from the University of Delhi, I took admission in LLM programme with an aim to become a law professor afterwards. During my postgraduation, I ran into a friend-cum-senior who had just cleared his IAS that time. He advised me to reconsider my career options and later, I realised that being a judicial officer was the best option for me.

After my LLM (2006), I prepared for six months at a stretch and gave the judicial services exam in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Chattisgarh (in 2007). After clearing preliminary and mains, I got the interview call from Haryana and later UP, but I chose to join the former. For the preliminary exam you must do thorough preparation. You either know or you don't know.

In the mains exam, they expect you to have good knowledge of certain topics. For that, you must be analytical and ought to make text references beyond the course books such as law commission reports. Until I was in the law college, I never knew that one could also use law commission reports as references. To crack the exam, you are required to update your knowledge as much as you can. One must read judgments in the latest cases pronounced by Supreme Court and High Courts.

Some of the oft-repeated questions include the ones on plea-bargaining, pendency of cases and accountability of judges. But you can't answer the questions without referring to Malimath Committee report (which came only last year).

Normally one can't figure out what is relevant among the gamut of cases, committee reports and judgments. It calls for the right guidance under an intelligent teacher.

Some people argue that being a judge doesn't pay well. But to my mind, for a fresh law graduate, Rs 45-50,000 is good money. No law firm in India pays this much to a fresh law graduate, not even after six months in the job.

Source: HT Horizons

Date: 11th June, 2010

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