Bar Council of Maharashtra to train young lawyers for judicial services; Year long programme commences in August

Aiming to kindle greater interest in the judicial services, the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa will be conducting a one-year training course for the state judicial exams. The exams, conducted by the Maharashtra Public Services Commission, are held every six months and successful candidates are appointed as Junior Magistrate First Class..The council has already selected seven hundred lawyers for this course, with twenty-five lawyers from each district, with the course expected to start in the third week of August..Speaking to Bar & Bench, the former council vice-chairman and coordinator of the scheme Jayant Jaibhave said that the principal aim behind the course is to fill the high number of vacancies in the subordinate judiciary, and the focus is on lawyers with less than seven years of experience. The course includes test material, classroom lectures as well as residential camps every six weeks, and may also include talks at the Maharashtra Judicial Academy at Thane..Jaibhave said that the council had initially asked the district Bar associations to publicize the course. The response was overwhelming, with more than two thousand applicants across all districts. Jaibhave also said that the council would subsidize the course fees, with the candidates only required to pay one thousand rupees. The subsidy has been possibly due to contributions from the Bar, explained Jaibhave, as well as from the moneys collected by the council itself..In addition to this, the Babasaheb Ambedkar Research and Training Institute (BARTI) has agreed to provide complete scholarship for thirty-two SC/ST candidates from each revenue division of Maharashtra and Goa. The Director of BARTI, DR Parihar, reportedly said that this was a welcome move, given the fact that there were no SC/ST reservations in the state judiciary services.