District Judge Recruitment Maharashtra: Bombay High Court Dismisses Plea, Clears Way for Main Written Exam

On June 25, 2026, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court dismissed a petition seeking to stall the district judge recruitment Maharashtra process for 89 posts, allowing the main written examination to proceed as scheduled on June 27 and 28, 2026.

The bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra V Ghuge and Justice Gautam A Ankhad rejected the challenge filed in the case Suraj Mane & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra & Anr., according to Bar & Bench.

Background: How We Got Here

The Bombay High Court issued the recruitment advertisement for 89 District Judge posts on January 30, 2026, under the 25% direct recruitment (nomination) quota governed by the Maharashtra Judicial Service Rules, 2008.

Applications were accepted until February 17, 2026. A preliminary examination was conducted on May 10, 2026, and results were declared on May 14, 2026, as reported by Bar & Bench.

• Eight advocates who sat the preliminary examination failed to secure qualifying marks and were declared unsuccessful in the May 14, 2026 results.
• The petitioners filed Suraj Deepak Mane & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra & Anr., seeking to quash the advertisement, the preliminary results, and to stay the main written examination.
• Their core grievance: the recruitment was conducted under amendments to the Maharashtra Judicial Service Rules, 2008, which had not been formally published in the Official Gazette when the advertisement was issued on January 30, 2026.
• The amended rules were formally notified only on June 17, 2026 — nearly five months after the advertisement had already been issued, per Bar & Bench.

The amendments themselves were approved by a full court of the Bombay High Court in January 2026, following the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench judgment in Rejanish KV v. K. Deepa (Civil Appeal No. 3947/2020), according to Bar & Bench.

That Constitution Bench ruling held that civil judges with seven years of experience at the bar are eligible to seek direct recruitment as District Judges, effectively overruling the earlier Dheeraj Mor judgment, as reported by LiveLaw.

A separate challenge was also filed before the Bombay High Court by a different group of practising advocates. According to LiveLaw, they contended that serving judicial officers were improperly permitted to compete under the 25% direct-recruitment quota — a quota those petitioners argued is reserved exclusively for practising advocates.

The Ruling — Key Findings

The Division Bench found no merit in the petitioners’ central argument that the recruitment process was vitiated because the amended rules had not been gazetted at the time the advertisement was published, as reported by Bar & Bench.

The court held that the pre-amendment rules had already ceased to operate — having been effectively quashed by the Supreme Court’s binding Rejanish KV pronouncement — and that acting on the full-court-approved amendments prior to gazette notification was therefore legally sound.

In the words of the Division Bench: “We find no merit in the submission that the approved amendments could not have been acted upon until their publication in the Official Gazette.”

The bench further observed: “The notification dated 17th June, 2026 merely completed the formal statutory process of bringing the Rules in conformity with the binding directions of the Constitution Bench.”

The court also noted that the petitioning lawyers had neither sought a copy of the approved amendments nor questioned the advertisement before voluntarily participating in the preliminary examination on May 10, 2026, according to Bar & Bench.

This finding significantly weakened the petitioners’ standing — having participated without objection, they could not now seek to unwind the process after failing to clear it.

With the petition dismissed, the main written examination for district judge recruitment Maharashtra was cleared to proceed on June 27 and 28, 2026, without any court-ordered interruption.

Reactions & What’s Next

The sources do not report any post-order statements from counsel for either the petitioners or the State of Maharashtra following the June 25, 2026 dismissal.

The immediate practical consequence is clear: candidates who qualified in the May 10, 2026 preliminary examination were set to sit the main written examination across June 27 and 28, 2026, with the recruitment process for the 89 District Judge posts continuing without judicial interruption.

The parallel challenge — filed by practising advocates contesting judicial officers’ eligibility under the 25% direct-recruitment quota — remains a separate proceeding before the Bombay High Court, per LiveLaw, and its outcome was not addressed by this bench’s order.

Full coverage: Bar & Bench. More legal news at The Courtroom.

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