"Unless You Know the Tactics and Strategy of a Lawyer, You Can't Be a Successful Judge" — Justice B.V. Nagarathna's Powerful Advice to Judicial Aspirants
EduLaw EditorialLegal Updates"If you want to be a successful judge, practice for more than 3 years and then write the exam. This is my advice." — Justice B.V. Nagarathna's remarks at the 1st Dr. Rajendra Prasad Memorial Lecture at CNLU Patna have ignited national discourse on whether courtroom experience is truly indispensable for those who wish to sit in judgment over others. Title: "Unless You Know the Tactics and Strategy of a Lawyer, You Can't Be a Successful Judge" — Justice B.V. Nagarathna's Landmark Observations on Courtroom Practice for Aspiring Judges Case Name: All India Judges Association & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. Case Number: W.P.(C) No. 1022 of 1989 (I.A. No. 93974 of 2019 and connected matters) Court: Supreme Court of India Judges: Hon'ble Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, Hon'ble Justice Augustine George Masih, Hon'ble Justice K. Vinod Chandran Judgment Date: May 20, 2025 Citation: 2025 INSC 735; 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2196 ABSTRACT On April 4, 2026, Supreme Court Justice B.V. Nagarathna delivered the 1st Dr. Rajendra Prasad Memorial Lecture at Chanakya National Law University (CNLU), Patna, on the theme "Constitutionalism Beyond Rights: Why Structure Matters." During the interactive session following her lecture, Justice Nagarathna made a series of emphatic observations on the importance of practical courtroom experience for aspiring judicial officers. Her central declaration — "Unless you know the tactics and strategy of a lawyer, you can't be a successful judge" — coupled with her advice that law graduates should practice for more than three years before writing the judicial service examination, has become the focal point of national debate on judicial recruitment reform. These observations find their legal foundation in the Supreme Court's judgment dated May 20, 2025, in All India Judges Association & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (2025 INSC 735) , which restored the mandatory requirement of three years of legal practice as a prerequisite for entry into the subordinate judiciary. This analysis examines Justice Nagarathna's complete observations, situates them within the governing legal framework, and evaluates their implications for judicial recruitment policy. TABLE OF CONTENTS The Quote in Context — What Justice Nagarathna Actually Said The Legal Foundation — All India Judges Association v. Union of India (2025) Why Courtroom Tactics Matter for Judges — The Logic of Experience Maturity and the Risk of Inexperience on the Bench Justice Nagarathna's Response to Gender Equity Concerns The Dissenting Perspective — Review Proceedings in Bhumika Trust Relevant Case Laws and Statutory Provisions Conclusion — Experience as the Price of Justice 1. THE QUOTE IN CONTEXT — WHAT JUSTICE NAGARATHNA ACTUALLY SAID The observations that have captured national attention were not made in the abstract. They emerged during a pointed exchange between Justice Nagarathna and Professor Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor of CNLU Patna, who expressed his view that the Supreme Court's judgment mandating three years of Bar practice would discourage women from joining the judicial service. Justice Nagarathna responded with characteristic directness, disagreeing openly and offering her own perspective rooted in nearly four decades of legal practice and judicial service. Her first observation addressed the psychology of aspiring judges who view the practice requirement as a "loss" of time. She stated: "I disagree with you Sir. Next year, I will be completing 40 years in the Bar. I have so many things to learn. If students who come from the bench of the classroom to the bench of the Court hall, they are losing out on experience — please don't think losing three years is a loss of life. I am learning still at 40. If the student is not able to stand before a judge and make an argument, seeking a relief, how will you, as a judge, grant relief? Don't think the three years of life is lost. That is a very negative attitude you have." She then escalated the specificity of her argument, illustrating with a concrete example drawn from daily litigation practice: "Three years is not sufficient, according to me. However, the Supreme Court has said three years. If a case is dismissed for default, what will you do? You will go and give your personal affidavit as a lawyer and seek restoration because a litigant has suffered because you have not appeared. If you have not done that as a lawyer, how will you grant relief as a judge? If you have not been in the Bar, how will you face the advocates in the Court? You will not be successful. You will start crying on the bench, that will add a very negative aspect to your personality. Unless you get into the water, you can't swim." Finally, she delivered the observation that has become the headline of this discourse: "Unless you know the tactics and strategy of a lawyer, you can't be a successful judge. If you want to be a successful judge, practice for more than 3 years and then write the exam. This is my advice." She added that writing examinations based merely on textbook knowledge would not be helpful in the long run. These are not casual remarks. They constitute a coherent judicial philosophy: that the act of judging is inseparable from the experience of having practiced, that procedural knowledge must be lived rather than merely studied, and that the maturity required for judicial office is cultivated through years of professional responsibility. 2. THE LEGAL FOUNDATION — ALL INDIA JUDGES ASSOCIATION v. UNION OF INDIA (2025) Justice Nagarathna's observations find their legal anchor in the Supreme Court's decision dated May 20, 2025, in All India Judges Association & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors., W.P.(C) No. 1022 of 1989, reported as 2025 INSC 735 . This judgment, delivered by a three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, Justice Augustine George Masih, and Justice K. Vinod Chandran, addressed multiple issues concerning the subordinate judiciary, including the pivotal question of whether the three-year practice requirement — eliminated in 2002 — should be restored. The Court's decision to restore the practice condition was informed by affidavits submitted by the majority of High Courts across India, which reported that fresh law graduates recruited without courtroom exposure since 2002 had exhibited deficiencies in procedural fluency, evidence appreciation, trial management, and the confidence necessary to conduct proceedings effectively. The judgment overruled the position established in All India Judges Association v. Union of India [(2002) 4 SCC 247] (the Third AIJA Case), which had dispensed with the requirement on the recommendation of the Justice K.J. Shetty Commission (First National Judicial Pay Commission, 1999). The 2025 Bench held that the experiment of two decades had demonstrated that academic training alone — without the complement of practical courtroom exposure — was insufficient to produce judges capable of managing the complex, adversarial, and procedurally demanding environment of trial courts. The Court directed that candidates seeking appointment as Civil Judge (Junior Division) must have practiced as an advocate for a minimum of three years from the date of enrollment with the State Bar Council. This is the legal framework that Justice Nagarathna was reinforcing and expanding upon in her CNLU Patna address. While the judgment provides the institutional mandate, her observations provide the philosophical justification — explaining why the rule exists and what would be lost without it. 3. WHY COURTROOM TACTICS MATTER FOR JUDGES — THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE The phrase "tactics and strategy of a lawyer" is not pejorative. It does not refer to deception or manipulation. In litigation, tactics encompass the procedural choices a lawyer makes — when to object, how to frame questions in cross-examination, which documents to prove first, when to press for adjournment and when to resist it, how to structure arguments for maximum persuasive impact, and how to respond to unexpected developments during trial. Strategy, on the other hand, refers to the overarching design of a case — the theory upon which the entire litigation is built, the sequencing of evidence, and the anticipation of the opposing party's moves. A judge who has never practiced at the Bar encounters these tactics and strategies from a position of ignorance. Such a judge may not recognize when an adjournment is being sought tactically to delay justice, when a witness is being led improperly, when a procedural objection is meritorious versus when it is being raised to disrupt the flow of evidence, or when a settlement offer is being made strategically to avoid an adverse precedent. The recognition of these patterns — which Justice Nagarathna identifies as essential for effective adjudication — can only come from having been on the other side of the Bar table. This principle has deep roots in judicial thought. The Law Commission of India's 14th Report (1958) on "Reform of Judicial Administration" recognized that judges drawn from the practicing Bar bring to the Bench an understanding of the practical difficulties of litigation that cannot be replicated through training alone. Similarly, in Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India [(2016) 5 SCC 1] , the qualities expected of judicial appointees — including practical wisdom, temperament, and understanding of the adversarial process — were discussed as essential attributes. Justice Nagarathna's swimming analogy — "Unless you get into the water, you can't swim" — captures this principle with elegant simplicity. No amount of theoretical study of hydrodynamics can substitute for the experience of being in water. Similarly, no academic study of the Code of Civil Procedure or the Indian Evidence Act (now Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 ) can replicate the experiential learning of conducting a trial. 4. MATURITY AND THE RISK OF INEXPERIENCE ON THE BENCH Perhaps the most striking portion of Justice Nagarathna's observations concerned the consequences of placing inexperienced judges in positions of grave responsibility. She offered a sobering hypothetical: "A District Judge can give a death penalty but imagine if we appoint somebody who is 30 years with lack of experience and he starts giving death penalty in all POCSO cases because there is a death penalty provided and so many references in the High Court, what happens to our judicial system? All this is in order to save our judicial system in the country, that we want maturity in our judges. Maturity comes with experience." This observation connects the practice requirement to the most consequential acts a trial court judge performs — sentencing in criminal cases, particularly under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act) . Under Section 6 of the POCSO Act , the punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault includes the death penalty (following the 2018 amendment). The exercise of discretion in such cases — choosing between imprisonment, life imprisonment, and death — demands not merely legal knowledge but the kind of judicial maturity that comes from years of observing human behavior, understanding the weight of evidence, and appreciating the irreversibility of certain judicial decisions. Justice Nagarathna also highlighted the practical authority dynamics of the courtroom. A young, inexperienced judge facing seasoned advocates decades their senior may lack the confidence to control proceedings, rule on objections firmly, or resist pressure — whether direct or subtle. Her vivid observation — "You will start crying on the bench, that will add a very negative aspect to your personality" — while expressed colloquially, points to a real institutional problem: judges who lack confidence due to inexperience are more susceptible to external influence, more likely to make procedural errors, and less capable of maintaining the dignity and efficiency of their courts. The jurisprudence on judicial temperament, as discussed in international comparative literature including the work produced by the Duke University Judicature Institute , confirms that temperament is not innate — it is cultivated through professional experience, particularly through the stresses and structured interactions of courtroom practice. 5. JUSTICE NAGARATHNA'S RESPONSE TO GENDER EQUITY CONCERNS A significant dimension of Justice Nagarathna's observations was her direct engagement with the argument — advanced by Professor Faizan Mustafa and echoed by review petitioners in Bhumika Trust v. Union of India, W.P.(C) No. 1110/2025 — that the three-year practice rule would disproportionately affect women aspirants. Justice Nagarathna's position was unequivocal: she did not accept that the rule would discourage women. Her reasoning was grounded in two arguments. First, she maintained that the benefits of practical experience are gender-neutral — both men and women judges require courtroom exposure to be effective, and denying women that experience in the name of expediting their entry would ultimately disadvantage them on the Bench. Second, she drew on her own professional journey of nearly four decades to demonstrate that sustained practice at the Bar, despite its challenges, is achievable for women who receive appropriate family and institutional support. However, she was not dismissive of the structural challenges women face. In the same address, she acknowledged that the "dual role" women play — as professionals and as primary caregivers within families — contributes to their underrepresentation in the legal profession. She specifically called for governments to ensure that at least 30 percent of government law officers at the Centre, States, and in public sector institutions are women, reasoning that greater visibility in the profession would create a stronger pipeline for judicial appointments and High Court elevations. This nuanced position — supporting the practice requirement while simultaneously advocating for structural interventions to support women lawyers — distinguishes her observations from a simple endorsement of the status quo. She does not deny that the Bar presents challenges for women; she argues that the solution lies in making Bar practice more accessible to women, not in exempting them from its benefits. 6. THE DISSENTING PERSPECTIVE — REVIEW PROCEEDINGS IN BHUMIKA TRUST Despite Justice Nagarathna's forceful advocacy, the debate remains live. Review petitions challenging the 2025 judgment were filed and are being heard under the style Bhumika Trust v. Union of India & Ors., W.P.(C) No. 1110/2025 , before a Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant with Justices A.G. Masih and K. Vinod Chandran (later Vipul M. Pancholi). During hearings in February 2026, CJI Surya Kant observed that "the most important issue is regarding young girls," noting that nearly 60 percent of judicial officers today are women. He flagged that the three-year practice condition "creates a vacuum period for young graduates, potentially deterring meritorious candidates from considering judicial service as a career option immediately after completing law school." The review petitioners advanced several arguments. The petition filed by Advocate Chandra Sen Yadav contended that the judgment overlooked key observations of the Shetty Commission recommending removal of the practice requirement. It argued that existing law degree curricula include court visits and internships, and that judicial officers undergo structured training before assuming office — making the three-year mandate unnecessary. Reliance was placed on All India Judges Association v. Union of India [(1993) 4 SCC 288] and the principle of reasonable classification under Article 14 , drawing on State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar [AIR 1952 SC 75] , to argue there is no rational basis to treat fresh graduates as per se unfit for judicial office. Senior Advocate Pinky Anand proposed that selected candidates undergo structured practical training by working with senior advocates, government pleaders, advocate generals, and legal aid defence counsel under the Legal Aid Defence Counsel Scheme, 2022 , rather than being required to sustain independent practice for three years. Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves argued that the expansion of State Judicial Academies had reduced the need for compulsory litigation experience before recruitment. As of July 2026, the Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on the review petitions. The final outcome will determine whether the mandate survives intact, is modified, or is phased in through a transitional framework. 7. RELEVANT CASE LAWS AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS The discourse on courtroom experience for judicial aspirants draws upon significant case law and statutory provisions that form the backbone of this legal question: All India Judges Association v. Union of India [2025 INSC 735; 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2196] — The judgment restoring the mandatory three-year practice requirement for Civil Judge (Junior Division) eligibility, overruling the 2002 position and holding that practical exposure at the Bar is essential for competent trial court judges. All India Judges Association v. Union of India [(2002) 4 SCC 247] — The Third AIJA Case, which had dispensed with the practice requirement following the Shetty Commission's recommendations, permitting fresh law graduates to enter judicial services. All India Judges Association v. Union of India [(1993) 4 SCC 288] — The Second AIJA Case, which upheld recommendations favoring intensive training as an alternative to mandatory Bar practice. State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar [AIR 1952 SC 75] — On reasonable classification under Article 14 of the Constitution, invoked by review petitioners to challenge the differential treatment of fresh graduates versus experienced advocates. Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India [(2016) 5 SCC 1] — The Fourth Judges Case, discussing attributes expected of judicial appointees, including practical wisdom and judicial temperament. Article 233 of the Constitution of India — Governs appointment of District Judges, requiring not less than seven years of practice as an advocate for candidates not already in judicial service, reflecting a constitutional recognition of the link between experience and judicial competence. Article 234 of the Constitution of India — Governs recruitment to judicial posts other than District Judges, delegating the framing of rules to State Governments in consultation with High Courts. Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 — Referenced by Justice Nagarathna in her illustration regarding the gravity of sentencing discretion that young, inexperienced judges may exercise. Section 21 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 — Invoked in review proceedings by counsel for persons with disabilities, advocating for Equal Opportunity Policies in legal workplaces and differentiated methods of calculating the practice period. Legal Aid Defence Counsel Scheme, 2022 — Proposed as an alternative framework for structured practical training by Senior Advocate Pinky Anand in the review proceedings. 8. CONCLUSION — EXPERIENCE AS THE PRICE OF JUSTICE Justice B.V. Nagarathna's observations at CNLU Patna are not merely career advice for law students. They constitute a judicial philosophy — one that insists the quality of justice delivered in Indian courts is fundamentally dependent on the experiential preparedness of those who deliver it. Her declaration that a judge who does not understand a lawyer's tactics and strategy "can't be a successful judge" is a statement about the nature of adjudication itself: that judging is not a purely intellectual act performed in isolation from the adversarial process, but an engaged, dynamic, and experientially demanding profession. The three-year practice requirement, restored by the Supreme Court in 2025 INSC 735 , operationalizes this philosophy into recruitment policy. Whether that requirement survives the ongoing review proceedings in its current form or is modified through phased implementation and structured alternatives, the underlying principle articulated by Justice Nagarathna is likely to endure as a cornerstone of judicial reform discourse in India. The courtroom, as she observed, is the place where future judges learn not from books but from life — from the litigant's desperation, from the advocate's persistence, from the witness's hesitation, and from the procedural complexity that only practice can demystify. Her swimming analogy remains the most apt summary of her position: "Unless you get into the water, you can't swim." For aspiring judges, the courtroom is that water — and no amount of preparation on dry land can substitute for the experience of having been immersed in it. Tags: Justice B.V. Nagarathna, Tactics and Strategy of a Lawyer, Three Year Practice Rule, Judicial Service Examination, Courtroom Experience, Judicial Temperament, All India Judges Association v Union of India 2025, CNLU Patna, Civil Judge Junior Division, Subordinate Judiciary Reform, Bhumika Trust v Union of India, Legal Practice Requirement India