Computer knowledge must for budding judges: Apex court

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The Supreme Court has said that the new judges being appointed in lower courts must have the basic knowledge of computer operations.

‘It will be unfair to overlook basic knowledge of computer operation for being a judge’ when the steps were being taken for the computerization of the courts for their efficient management, said a bench of Justice Mukundakam Sharma and Justice Anil R. Dave in a judgment Friday.

The court said this while rejecting a petition by Vijendra Kumar Verma who was not selected for judicial service because he lacked basic knowledge of computer operations.

The petitioner claimed that even after being successful in written examination and having doing ‘reasonably well’ in viva voca he was not selected for the service.

Verma had appeared for a test to fill 50 posts of civil judge (junior division) in Uttarakhand.

Speaking for the bench, Justice Mukundakam Sharma said: ‘We are of the considered opinion that the requirement of having basic knowledge of computer operation should not be diluted.’

The judgment said that it was also to be considered that the Indian judiciary was taking steps to apply e-governance for efficient management of courts. In the near future, all the courts in the country will be computerized.

‘We also deem fit not to comment over the standard applied by the expert (on the interview board) in judging the said knowledge as the same is his subjective satisfaction,’ the judgment read.

‘The aforesaid procedure for testing the knowledge may not be foolproof but at the same time it cannot be said that the same was not reasonable or that it was arbitrary,’ the judgment said.

The court said that directions could be given for making the procedure more transparent but it was not required as the same have already been given by the Uttarakhand High Court.

While dismissing the petition by Verma, the court noted that at every stage of examination right from advertisement to the final selection, candidates were reminded about the requirement of the basic knowledge of computer operations as a necessary requirement for selection.

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