Bhubaneswar: The Supreme Court Tuesday expressed concern over the slow and uneven career progression of entry-level judicial officers across the country and began hearing a case to frame uniform, nationwide criteria for determining seniority in the Higher Judicial Service (HJS) cadre.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice BR Gavai took note of the situation that “in most of the states, judicial officers recruited as Civil Judge (CJ) often do not reach the level of Principal District Judge (PDJ), let alone reaching the position of a High Court Judge.

This has resulted in many bright young lawyers being dissuaded from joining the service at the level of CJ”.

The bench, also comprising justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, K Vinod Chandran and Joymalya Bagchi, framed the ques

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