Crack India's Most Elite Judicial Exam. Rule the Delhi Bench.

The Delhi Judicial Service (DJS) Examination is a highly competitive, prestigious state-level recruitment process conducted by the High Court of Delhi to appoint judicial officers for the cadre of Civil Judge / Judicial Magistrate First Class. Unlike standard memory-based exams, DJS tests rigorous legal reasoning, statutory interpretation, real-time application of mind, and advanced legal drafting skills.

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Crucial Syllabus Focus: New Sanhitas & Local Acts

• Transition to New Criminal Laws: Candidates are evaluated on the newly enacted criminal laws (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita - BNS, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita - BNSS, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam - BSA) along with relevant transitional mapping to the legacy codes (IPC, CrPC, Evidence Act).
• Local & Commercial Statutes: The exam places heavy emphasis on specialized legislation, including the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, Commercial Courts Act, 2015, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, POCSO Act, and LLP Act, 2008.
• Language & High-Weightage Translation: Mains Paper I explicitly tests candidates on English language proficiency, precis writing, essay drafting, and English-to-Hindi / Hindi-to-English legal translations.

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Key DJS Examination Snapshot

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Delhi Judiciary 2026 - Upcoming Dates

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To be announced

The salary for an entry-level Delhi Judicial Service (DJS) Civil Judge ranges from approximately ₹77,840 to ₹1,36,520 per month (gross), with a basic entry pay of ₹77,840 as per the Second National Judicial Pay Commission (2nd NJPC) recommendations.

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Career Pay Progression

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Allowances and Perks

• Housing: Free or subsidized official accommodation (bungalow or flat) or HRA.
• Utilities: Free or reimbursed electricity, water, and telephone allowances.
• Travel & Support: Official vehicle/transport facilities along with fuel quotas and domestic help/peon allowances.
• Medical & Pension: Comprehensive medical coverage for the officer and dependents, alongside post-retirement pension benefits.

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The Delhi Judicial Service (DJS) examination has three successive stages: the Preliminary Examination, the Mains Examination, and the Viva-Voce Interview.

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Stage 1: Preliminary Exam (Objective Type)

1. The Prelims exam will be OMR Based and will consist of multiple-choice questions.
2. 1 mark will be awarded for every correct answer and a negative marking of 0.25 marks for each wrong/multiple answers.
3. The language of the question paper of the Prelims Exam will be in English only.
4. The qualifying marks is 60% for General category and 55% for reserved categories (SC/ST/OBC). Actual cut-off varies yearly and depends on the paper difficulty and application score.

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Subject wise question count distribution:

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Stage 2: Main Examination

​Candidates shortlisted from the Prelims advance to the Main Examination. Performance in this written phase serves as the fundamental criteria for preparing the final selection merit list.

• Exam Format: Descriptive written papers.
• Qualifying Benchmarks:

• Language: Candidates can choose to write answers in English only

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Exam pattern and marks distribution:

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Stage 3: Viva-Voce (Personal Interview)

• Marks: 150 marks.
• Qualifying Marks: Minimum 50% marks required for general category. 45% for reserved categories (SC/ST/PwD)
• Focus: Tests Legal Insights & Temperament, Current Legal Awareness and Personality Assessment

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Preliminary Examination Syllabus

This 2.5-hour, objective-type paper includes a 0.25 negative marking penalty. It evaluates candidates on:

• General Knowledge & Aptitude: Current legal events, landmark Supreme Court rulings, and general awareness.
• English Language: Grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.
• Core Laws:
  • Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) / Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS)
  • Code of Civil Procedure (CPC)
  • Indian Penal Code (IPC) / Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS)
  • Indian Evidence Act / Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA)
  • Arbitration and Conciliation Act
  • Constitution of India
  • Limitation Act
  • Commercial Courts Act
  • Indian Contracts Act
  • Specific Relief Act
  • Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO)
  • Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) Act
  • Legal Maxims
  • Delhi Rent Control Act
  • English Language
  • Legal General Knowledge

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Main Examination Syllabus

The Mains exam consists of four descriptive papers with 3 hour each. Totaling to 850 marks and 12 hour total time.

Paper 1: General Legal Knowledge & Language (250 Marks)

Paper 1 is divided into 2 sections.

Section 1 - General Legal Knowledge

• Current Legal Affairs: Landmark judgments delivered by the Supreme Court of India and High Courts.
• Legal Developments: Recent socio-legal developments, newly enacted central legislation, and high-profile ordinances.
• Constitutional Trends: Contemporary debates, legal issues, and changes in constitutional governance.

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Section 2 - Language

• Essay Writing: Detailed descriptive essays analyzing general topics, social legal issues, or constitutional themes.
• Précis Writing: Reading a complex, long legal passage and summarizing it concisely with clear, accurate language.
• Translation (English to Hindi): Translating a substantive passage from English to Hindi using the Devanagari script.
• Translation (Hindi to English): Translating a court order or vernacular testimony passage from Hindi to English.

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Paper 2: Civil Law I (200 Marks)

This paper focuses primarily on substantive civil law and personal laws. Questions are generally problem-based, testing analytical logic over rote memorization.

• Substantive Laws:
  • The Indian Contract Act, 1872: General principles, damages, bailment, pledge, agency, and special contracts.
  • The Specific Relief Act, 1963: Discretionary remedies, specific performance, injunctions, and declaratory decrees.
  • The Transfer of Property Act, 1882: Sales, mortgages, leases, exchanges, gifts, and actionable claims.
  • The Sale of Goods Act, 1930: Conditions, warranties, transfer of property, performance, and rights of unpaid sellers.
  • The Indian Partnership Act, 1932: Nature, mutual relations, incoming/outgoing partners, and dissolution of firms.
• Family/Personal Laws:
  • Hindu Law: Marriage, divorce, adoption, minority, guardianship, succession, and Hindu joint family/coparcenary properties.
  • Mohammedan Law: Marriage, dower, divorce, parentage, legitimacy, guardianship, gifts, wills, and inheritance.
• Torts & Local Rent Acts:
  • Law of Torts: General defenses, vicarious liability, strict/absolute liability, negligence, nuisance, and defamation.
  • The Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958: Eviction of tenants, standard rent, controllers' jurisdictions, and local land laws.

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Paper 3: Civil Law II (200 Marks)

This paper evaluates procedural civil regulations, evidentiary compliance, and specialized corporate/remedial civil legislations.

• Core Civil Procedure & Evidence:
  • The Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC): Complete procedural machinery from the institution of suits, pleadings, execution of decrees, appeals, references, reviews, to revisions.
  • The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (Civil Aspect): Relevancy of facts, oral and documentary evidence, burden of proof, and presumptions.
• Limitation & Registration:
  • The Limitation Act, 1963: Computation of limitation periods, condonation of delay, legal disability, and prescription.
  • The Registration Act, 1908: Compulsorily and optionally registrable documents, effects of non-registration, and procedures.
• Commercial & Alternative Dispute Resolution:
  • The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996: Domestic arbitration, enforcement of awards, and conciliation proceedings.
  • The Commercial Courts Act, 2015: Jurisdiction of commercial courts, summary judgments, and specialized litigation procedures.
  • The Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 (LLP): Formation, conversion, partner liability, and corporate civil defaults.
  • The Trade Marks Act, 1999 & The Copyright Act, 1957: Fundamental intellectual property parameters and civil remedies for infringement.

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Paper 4: Criminal Law (200 Marks)

This paper covers substantive and procedural criminal jurisprudence. It places major emphasis on practical applications like formatting charges, checking evidentiary admissibility, and framing judicial judgments.

• Core Penal Laws:
  • The Indian Penal Code (IPC): General exceptions, criminal conspiracies, offenses against the human body, offenses against property, and offenses against public tranquility.
  • The Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC): Arrest mechanisms, investigation, framing of charges, trial procedures before different courts, judgments, bail, appeals, and revisions.
  • The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (Criminal Aspect): Confessions, dying declarations, expert testimonies, admissibility of electronic records, and examination of witnesses.
• Special Criminal Enactments:
  • The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881: Specifically section 138 onwards regarding dishonor of cheques, trials, and statutory defenses.
  • The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO): Procedures, special offenses, protections, and fast-track penal updates.
  • The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015: Procedure for children in conflict with law and child welfare boards.
  • The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005: Protection orders, residence orders, and reliefs.
  • The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 (POSH): Composition of local/internal committees and penal processes.

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Educational Qualifications

Applicants targeting the Delhi civil judge position need to satisfy the following academic and cultural requirements:

• Law Degree: You must hold a valid Bachelor's Degree in Law (LL.B.) from a university recognized by the Bar Council of India.
• Bar Enrollment: You must be practicing as an advocate in India or be qualified to be admitted as an advocate under the Advocates Act, 1961.
• Prior Experience: There is no mandatory minimum years of experience required for the entry-level DJS exam (unlike the Higher Judicial Service which requires 7 years).
• Character & Health: You must possess a good moral character and be free from any disqualifying criminal misconduct or medical conditions.​

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Nationality

Must be an Indian Citizen

State Openness: Candidates from any state in India can apply.

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Language Proficiency

There is no separate language proficiency certificate required to apply for the Delhi Judicial Service (DJS) exam, but candidates must be proficient in both English and Hindi.

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Age Limit Requirements

Candidates looking to apply must fall within the official age range specified below:

• Maximum Age: You must not be more than 32 years old (General Category).
• Minimum Age: There is no minimum age limit specified by the Delhi High Court.

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Permissible Age Relaxations

Upper age limit relaxations apply to various reserved categories:

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Payment Mode: Online via Debit Card, Credit Card, Net Banking, or UPI (Bank charges may apply)

Form Correction: Once you pay the fee and submit the application, the form is locked and can not be changed (Subject to specific correction window if notified by Delhi High court)

Preparing for the Delhi Judicial Service Examination demands the highest screening accuracy of any state judiciary exam combined with genuine command over English expression. The Delhi High Court sets a 60% prelims qualifying bar and awards 250 marks to a single language-and-current-affairs paper in Mains — so a purely bare-act-driven strategy fails here. Your plan must be built around accuracy, expression, and the Delhi-specific civil statutes.

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Step 1: Clear the 60% Prelims Threshold — The Steepest Screening Bar in Indian Judiciary

Unlike most states that qualify at 50%, DJS Prelims requires 60% for general category and 55% for SC/ST/PwD.

• The paper carries 200 marks over 2 hours 30 minutes, with 25% negative marking (–0.25 per wrong answer), so a blind guess costs you a quarter of a correct attempt.
• Build attempt discipline around a 130–140 net target rather than maximum coverage — at this threshold, elimination accuracy matters more than volume attempted.
• Prelims marks are purely qualifying and are excluded from the final merit list; treat this stage as a gate, not a scoring opportunity.

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Step 2: Treat Paper I (250 Marks) as a Scoring Paper, Not a Formality

Paper I — General Legal Knowledge & Language — is the single largest paper in Mains and the one most aspirants underprepare.

• Section I (100 marks) tests current legal affairs: recent Supreme Court and Delhi High Court rulings, constitutional bench decisions, and legislative developments.
• Section II (150 marks) tests essay, précis writing, and translation, marked explicitly for power of expression in English — credit is given for substance and expression, and marks are deducted for poor language.
• Practise to a fixed compression ratio weekly and write one 1,000-word legal essay a week; this section rewards drilling far more than reading.

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Step 3: Master Delhi's Signature Civil Statutes — Rent Control, Limitation & Registration

Delhi's local-law weightage sits inside the civil papers, not in a separate section.

• Civil Law–I (200 marks): Indian Contract Act, Sale of Goods Act, Indian Partnership Act, Specific Relief Act, Hindu Law, Mohammedan Law, Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, and Law of Torts.
• Civil Law–II (200 marks): CPC, Law of Evidence, Law of Limitation, and Law of Registration.
• The Registration Act and Limitation Act are separately examinable subjects in DJS — a distinction from most state exams where they appear only incidentally. Do not fold them into CPC revision.

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Step 4: Build Criminal Law Command Across Both Statutory Regimes

Paper IV (Criminal Law, 200 marks) covers CrPC, IPC and the Evidence Act.

• The Delhi Judicial Service Rules still frame this paper in terms of the older codes, but candidates must be equally fluent in BNS, BNSS and BSA, since transition-period questions and provision-mapping now surface across recent cycles.
• Prepare section-pair fluency (IPC 302 ↔ BNS 103, CrPC 156(3) ↔ BNSS 175(3), Evidence Act 65B ↔ BSA 63) rather than treating the new codes as a separate syllabus.
• Confirm the operative statutory framing against the live Delhi High Court notification before your final revision cycle.

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Step 5: Hit Every Qualifying Gate — Paper-Wise Minimums and Viva

DJS eliminates on individual paper performance, not just aggregate.

• You must secure 40% in each written paper and 50% in aggregate (35% and 45% respectively for SC/ST/PwD) to be called for Viva-Voce — one weak paper ends the attempt regardless of your total.
• Viva-Voce carries 150 marks and requires a minimum of 50% (45% for reserved categories) to enter the final list.
• Final merit is computed from Mains (850) plus Viva (150) out of 1,000 — so the interview alone controls 15% of your rank. Practise structured oral reasoning on landmark judgments, not just recall.
• Use Lawpatra's DJS section-wise mock series and précis-and-essay evaluation module to track paper-wise minimums rather than aggregate scores alone.

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Q: What is the overall selection process for the Delhi Judicial Service?
A: The Delhi High Court conducts recruitment under the Delhi Judicial Service Rules, 1970, in three sequential stages:

1. Preliminary Examination: An objective-type screening test of 200 marks, 2 hours 30 minutes.
2. Main Examination (Written): Four descriptive papers totalling 850 marks, 3 hours per paper.
3. Viva-Voce (Interview): A personal interview carrying 150 marks.

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Q: How is the final merit list prepared?
A: Final merit is computed out of 1,000 marks — Mains (850) plus Viva-Voce (150). Preliminary Examination marks are purely qualifying and carry zero weight in the final ranking.

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Q: What is the Preliminary Examination pattern and the negative marking rule?
A: The Prelims is an objective MCQ paper of 200 marks with a duration of 2 hours 30 minutes. Negative marking is 25% (0.25 marks) deducted for each incorrect answer. The syllabus covers General Knowledge, aptitude, English language and power of expression, and objective-type legal problems drawn from the core substantive and procedural laws.

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Q: What are the qualifying marks in the Preliminary Examination?
A: 60% for the general category and 55% for reserved categories (SC, ST, and eligible categories of Persons with Disabilities). This is the steepest prelims threshold among Indian judicial service examinations. Most states qualify at 50%.

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Q: What is the structure of the Main Examination?
A: Four compulsory descriptive papers of 3 hours each:

• Paper I — General Legal Knowledge & Language (250 marks): Section I, General Legal Knowledge, 100 marks (current legal affairs); Section II, Language, 150 marks (essay, précis writing, and translation). Marks are awarded for substance and expression, with deductions for poor expression.
• Paper II — Civil Law I (200 marks): Indian Contract Act, Sale of Goods Act, Indian Partnership Act, Specific Relief Act, Hindu Law, Mohammedan Law, Delhi Rent Control Act, and Law of Torts.
• Paper III — Civil Law II (200 marks): Code of Civil Procedure, Law of Evidence, Law of Limitation, and Law of Registration.
• Paper IV — Criminal Law (200 marks): Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, and Indian Evidence Act.

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Q: What are the qualifying marks in the Main Examination and the Viva-Voce?
A: To be called for the Viva-Voce, a candidate must secure a minimum of 40% in each written paper and 50% in the aggregate. For SC, ST and eligible PwD candidates, the requirement is 35% in each paper and 45% in the aggregate. In the Viva-Voce, the minimum is 50% for general category and 45% for reserved categories to be eligible for inclusion in the final list.

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Q: What is the age limit and educational qualification?
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• Educational Qualification: The candidate must be a person practising as an Advocate in India, or a person qualified to be admitted as an Advocate under the Advocates Act, 1961. No minimum years of practice are required, so fresh law graduates are eligible.
• Age Limit: Not more than 32 years of age. Note the unusual reckoning date under the Rules — age is computed as on 1st January following the date of commencement of the examination, not as on the application deadline.
• Age Relaxation: 5 years for SC/ST and Ex-Servicemen; 10 years for general-category candidates with disability; 15 years for SC/ST candidates with disability. There is no OBC age relaxation in DJS.
• Attempts: No cap on the number of attempts, subject to the age ceiling.

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Q: Is knowledge of Hindi mandatory?
A: There is no separate qualifying regional language test in DJS, unlike in Gujarat or Maharashtra. However, translation forms part of the Language section of Mains Paper I, so working competence in Hindi is functionally necessary. The paper is primarily designed to test knowledge and power of expression in English.

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Q: Which Delhi-specific laws are examinable?
A: The signature local statute is the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, which sits within Civil Law–I. The Law of Limitation and the Law of Registration are also listed as separate examinable subjects under Civil Law–II — a distinction from most state examinations, where they appear only incidentally within CPC.

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Q: Does the syllabus include the new criminal laws (BNS, BNSS, BSA)?
A: The criminal law paper is framed in the Rules in terms of the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act. Candidates must nevertheless be equally fluent in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, since transition-period questions and provision-mapping now feature in recent cycles. Confirm the operative statutory framing against the live notification for your cycle.

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Q: What is the pay scale for a newly appointed Civil Judge in Delhi?
A: Appointment is to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) under the Second National Judicial Pay Commission (SNJPC) framework:

• Pay Scale: ₹77,840 – ₹1,36,520
• Starting Basic Pay: ₹77,840 per month
• Estimated In-Hand Salary: approximately ₹1,00,000 – ₹1,10,000 per month, since Delhi attracts the highest HRA slab as an X-class city, alongside DA and other admissible allowances.

Q: Is there a probation period after selection?
A: Yes. Selected candidates are appointed on probation and undergo institutional training at the Delhi Judicial Academy before and during their initial posting. Departmental examinations must be passed during the probation period. Confirm the exact probation duration and any bond conditions against the notification for your cycle, as these are periodically revised.

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