Must lawyers file tax papers to be judges?

A candidate may have the experience to become a district judge, but does he/she have the income? The debate that sparked off before the Bombay High Court may take an interesting turn. Anita Kataria, an advocate has challenged the tax payer condition laid down by the state department of law and judiciary (L&J) for candidates aspiring to become district judges.

As per rules made by a High Court Judge’s Committee, a candidate applying for the post of a district judge should be a practising advocate with at least 55% marks in the LLB exam and should be an income-tax payee.

Kataria’s petition says that income cannot be a criterion to determine a person’s eligibility for the post. Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice Ranjana Desai have reserved their order in the case.

The petition states that going by the conditions laid down, a woman lawyer earning less than Rs 20,000 per month cannot become a judge as she will not fall into the tax payee bracket.

The petitioner’s advocate Shrihari Aney argued that a male lawyer with an annual income of Rs1 lakh will qualify for the post, but a woman earning the same will not as tax is exempted for women up to an annual income of Rs1.5 lakh.

Stretching the argument further, Aney argued that if a man has an income of Rs1.99 lakh with well-planned investments, he will still be exempted from paying tax and in a woman’s case this would be true up to an annual income of Rs2.34 lakh. “A person should be fit to be a district judge and not wealthy”, Aney contested.

He further told the court that income could not determine a person’s capability to hold the post. The policy, he said, is also discriminatory in a way that lawyers from rural areas may have the same number of years of practice and the same qualifications but may not earning as much as those in the cities.

“A lawyer from Bhusaval will certainly not earn as much as lawyers in Mumbai or Pune”, Aney said. However, not crossing the tax exemption bar cannot be considered a disqualification for the post.

The L&J department had invited applications for written exams for the District Judge’s post in May, evoking over a thousand applications from various parts of Maharashtra.