Orissa High Court District Judge Recruitment 2026: 38 Posts, Apply 9 to 25 November

The Orissa High Court District Judge Recruitment 2026 is open for 38 posts. Applications started at 10 in the morning on 9 November and close at 11:59 at night on 25 November 2026. The advertisement is number 03 of 2026, dated 4 November, and it sits on the High Court of Orissa website under Important Notices. Only online applications count. The pay scale is Rs 1,44,840 to Rs 1,94,660 a month, plus dearness allowance and other allowances. The fee is Rs 750.

This is not a general graduate recruitment. It is a direct entry route to the District Judge cadre for working advocates, and the eligibility bar is narrow on purpose. You need a law degree, seven years of continuous practice as an advocate, and age between 35 and 45 on the date you apply. If you meet that, read on. If you do not, no part of the form will fix it.

Orissa High Court District Judge Recruitment 2026 at a glance

The 38 posts, category by category

The vacancy table in the advertisement gives 19 posts for unreserved candidates, 4 for SEBC, 6 for Scheduled Caste and 9 for Scheduled Tribe. The advertisement earmarks thirteen of the 38 posts for women, spread across the categories as 7 unreserved, 1 SEBC, 2 Scheduled Caste and 3 Scheduled Tribe. Three posts carry horizontal reservation for persons with benchmark disabilities.

Two notes from the advertisement matter here. If a category falls short of eligible women candidates, the leftover posts go to eligible men of that same category. And if a reserved category has too few eligible candidates, its posts go to the unreserved category. The court also says the number of vacancies can change at its discretion.

Who can apply

The advertisement sets four conditions, and all four have to hold on the date you apply.

First, a law degree from a recognised university or an institution recognised by the government.

Second, seven years of continuous practice as an advocate. The advertisement also accepts combined experience: an advocate who served in the judicial service, or a judicial officer who practised for seven years before joining service, or a judicial officer with seven years combined as advocate and officer. Count your practice years from the date of provisional enrolment or registration with the State Bar Council. Public prosecutors can apply too, provided they meet the qualification, experience and age conditions, and they need a no objection certificate from their controlling authority.

Third, age between 35 and 45 on the date of application. Every candidate gets one extra year on the upper limit for recruitment year 2026, because the 2025 vacancies in this cadre were not notified. On top of that, the maximum age relaxes by 5 years for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, SEBC non creamy layer and women candidates, and by 10 years for persons with benchmark disabilities. A candidate who falls under more than one category gets only the single most beneficial relaxation.

Fourth, Odia. You must be able to speak, read and write Odia fluently, and you must have passed an examination in Odia equivalent to Middle English School standard. The advertisement asks for the certificate as proof, so this is a document you upload, not a claim you type.

You must be an Indian citizen, and a candidate dismissed from service, convicted of an offence involving moral turpitude, or debarred by a High Court or a Public Service Commission cannot apply.

How to apply, and what to upload

Apply only on orissahighcourt.nic.in, through Recruitment Corner, then Examination Portal, then the link titled Direct Recruitment to the posts in the cadre of District Judge, 2026. The advertisement is clear that applications through any other mode will not be entertained and will be rejected without assigning a reason.

Pay the Rs 750 fee online by net banking, debit card, credit card or UPI. It is non-refundable and non-adjustable. Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and persons with benchmark disabilities candidates need not pay, at their option.

The upload list is long, so gather it before you start. Aadhaar card, matriculation certificate for name and date of birth, the Odia pass certificate, the law degree, and the certificate of legal practice in the format given in Annexure I of the advertisement. Judicial officers upload the service certificate in Annexure II instead, and candidates with both kinds of experience upload both. Add a recent passport size colour photograph and a full signature on a white background, plus category or disability certificates where they apply. If your name changed after school, the advertisement asks for the newspaper publication and the Odisha Gazette notification. Our exam photo resizer can size that photograph and signature for the upload.

One rule deserves attention. The name and date of birth you enter must match your matriculation certificate exactly. A mismatch the listed documents do not back will get the application rejected, with no correspondence entertained. And if you submit more than one application, only the latest one counts, the one with the higher acknowledgement number.

The practice certificate itself has a specific rule. Get it certified by the Principal Judicial Officer of a court, or by an advocate of that court with at least ten years of standing, duly endorsed by the Principal Judicial Officer. Advocates practising before a High Court or the Supreme Court need certification by a ten year standing advocate, endorsed by the Registrar (Judicial) of the court. Get this certificate early. It is the one document you cannot produce at the last minute.

What the exam looks like

Selection has two parts: a written examination and an interview.

The written examination is three papers, each of 100 marks and two hours. Paper 1 covers civil laws: the Code of Civil Procedure, personal laws, transfer of property, specific relief, limitation, contract, and Odisha land and arbitration laws. Paper 2 covers criminal laws: the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, the Indian Penal Code and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Evidence Act and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, plus a set of special Acts. Paper 3 is General English, a qualifying paper of translation between Odia and English, a short essay, precis writing and a comprehension passage. You need at least 45 percent in Paper 3.

The interview carries 30 marks. The court calls candidates for interview in the ratio of 1 to 10, provided they scored at least 45 percent in each written paper and 50 percent in aggregate. For persons with benchmark disabilities the bar is 40 percent in each paper and 45 percent in aggregate. The court draws the final merit list from Paper 1, Paper 2 and the interview, and a candidate needs at least 40 percent in the interview to figure in it. Selected candidates face a State Medical Board before final appointment, and every appointee goes through training and probation under the Orissa Superior Judicial Service and Orissa Judicial Service Rules, 2007.

The court has not announced an exam date yet. The advertisement says the court will publish the notice for the date and time of each stage on its website, and it will not send any admission letter by post. Check orissahighcourt.nic.in regularly for the date and for the e-admit card. The court pays no travelling allowance or daily allowance for appearing in the examination.

Odisha has two other large windows open this week. The OPSC ASO recruitment takes 340 Assistant Section Officer applications from 9 to 30 November, and the OPSC AEE recruitment for 758 Assistant Executive Engineer posts closes on 11 November. Both are on opsc.gov.in.

For help with the online form, the advertisement gives the Recruitment Cell of the court on mobile number 9437498780 and email [email protected], on working days between 10:30 AM and 4:30 PM, from the opening date to the closing date of applications.

Sources & verification: High Court of Orissa, Advertisement No. 03 of 2026 for direct recruitment to the posts in the cadre of District Judge, dated 4 November 2026, read from orissahighcourt.nic.in on 9 November 2026. Vacancy split, pay, eligibility, fee, exam scheme and application route are from that advertisement.