PREPARATION GUIDE FOR

DELHI JUDICIAL SERVICES (PRELIMS AND MAINS)

- MANISHA BHAU

RANK 18

(DJS EXAMINATION 2022-2023)

Important considerations before using this guide:

1. I only prepared for Delhi Judicial Service Examination (2022-2023). My entire

preparation was tailored accordingly.

2. I did not attend regular coaching classes. Instead, I only participated in the prelims
test series (Rahul's IAS) and availed coaching for the interview (Interview
Guidance Programme of Rahul's IAS and mock interviews with the APS Judicial
Academy).

3. I started preparing full-time in November 2021. By ‘full-time’, I mean that I had

graduated and I was not working either, so I had my entire day committed to my
preparation.

4. This guide describes my personal experience in clearing DJS. It is not a definitive

guide on how to clear the exam, as different individuals may have different
methods and areas of focus. It is important to note that certain approaches
mentioned here may not align with everyone's perspectives. Some individuals may
require additional practice in answer writing or English skills, as it can vary from
person to person. For instance, I struggled with English-to-Hindi translation and
had to dedicate more attention to improving in that area.

Bear in mind what works for you. Be honest and clear about your strengths and
weaknesses from the beginning.

5. The syllabus for DJS (both prelims as well as mains) was changed in February
2022 i.e two months before the prelims. Before that, I was preparing only as per
the old syllabus.

6. The Mains exam is an open-book exam, i.e, the bare acts are provided to each
candidate.
—
 HOW DID I MAKE SELF-STUDY WORK?

1. Exam analysis

Before I started my prep, I did two things - I spent around two weeks analyzing the
previous year papers, and listened to as many topper interviews on Youtube as possible.

I tried to understand the exam patterns (both prelims and mains), i.e how application
based it is, what type of essays are asked in GK and language paper, what topics are asked
in the essay or short-note type questions in the legal papers and how many, what is the
standard of english asked in the language paper, and so on.

For this purpose, the first purchases I made were -

(1) Singhal’s Delhi Judicial Service Solved Papers of Preliminary Examination

(2) Universal’s Delhi Judicial Service Examination Solved Papers by Shailender

Malik.

[Please cross-check with the official answer key for the purpose of prelims, as well as
have a look at the cases in which the High Court of Delhi has adjudicated upon the
answer key of DJS, such as Nishant Basoya vs Registrar General, High Court of Delhi.]

I consistently referred to previous year papers not only at the beginning of my preparation
but also repeatedly throughout the entire study period so I could redirect myself according
to the pattern.

2. Sources

Almost 100% of my choice of textbooks came from interviews of people who had cleared
the exam (available online).

Basis these, I made a list of sources for each subject and stayed committed to those
sources. Though I complemented my prep through columns and articles on websites such
as LiveLaw, Bar&Bench, SCC Blog, yet, my primary sources for a subject never
changed.

When the syllabus changed in February, I had to manage the sources for the new subjects
on my own, I’ve elaborated on this in detail at Page 6.
 3. Revision

This was key.

It’s important to be efficient with revision because all revisions are not the same. For
example, for contract law, it could either be a revision of the bare act or of the case laws.
Sometimes I would do both and sometimes either of them based on how much time I was
allocating to the revision + what I was in the mood for + whether the last revision was of
cases or the bare act.

Similarly, sometimes it also means revising only cases of the previous one year. For
instance, on a particular day I would revise cases of the Supreme Court from January
2021 to March 2021 (see sources below), which meant a revision of a variety of laws
instead of only one.

The point is that whether I was revising cases or the bare act, or just notes of cases from
recent years – I was revising constantly.

In the first three-four months, I was more focused on completing my syllabus from the
textbooks, with a mix of revision, and both went hand-in-hand. Gradually, the share of
‘finishing a subject’ in my preparation reduced, and the share of ‘revision’ increased. This
is a progression I made in my preparation.

4. Excel sheets

I had an excel sheet titled ‘Study Tracker’ to keep track of my monthly to-dos and
schedules.
(Please note that this is not a complete screenshot. I made the above excel sheet to have a
clear sense of the syllabus. The syllabus for the prelims and mains is not the same, and
therefore, the preparation for all subjects will not be the same. Keep a sheet or a
handwritten chart handy which clearly sets out the syllabus for prelims and mains,
respectively).
(The above sheet is filled as per my estimated analysis of previous year GK and Language
paper, please do the same yourself).
 BROAD CHRONOLOGY OF MY PREPARATION

1. First two weeks -

a. Previous year paper analysis

b. Analysis of the syllabus

c. Listening and reading interviews of previous year toppers

2. November 2021 to February 2021 - Mains preparation

I started with the substantive criminal law (IPC) and then followed it with the
procedural law (CrPC and Evidence). Similarly, for civil law, I started with
contract law and law of sale of goods and then I picked up CPC and Limitation
and so on.

My schedule was a mix of finishing syllabus and revising in these 4 months. I did
not wait to finish all subjects before I picked up IPC and CrPC for revision,
because that way I would have forgotten everything I read in the beginning. So
revision and finishing syllabus went hand-in-hand.

You can find a schedule that suits you. For instance, keep weekends for revision
and weekdays for completing syllabus. Or make a plan that after you finish
contracts, you’ll revise IPC. My schedule also included covering the recent cases
of Supreme Court and High Court of Delhi, as you’ll see below in ‘sources’.

3. March 2022 and April 2022 - Prelims preparation

4. April 2022 to June 2022 - Mains preparation + Focus on answer writing practice

—
 SOME OF MY SOURCES

Subject Source My remarks (if any)

Indian ● PSA Pillai’s In my opinion, all sections were not equally important. I studied some
Penal Code Criminal Law in-depth, especially with the use of landmark cases, whereas for
others, I only had a basic understanding of the provision.
● LiveLaw
I realised through my previous paper analysis that certain provisions
and concepts (such as murder, culpable homicide, theft, kidnapping,
provisions related to the offence of rape, all the general exceptions,
etc.) need a clearer and more in-depth understanding than others.

At the same time, I had a good basic understanding of the terms used
in the IPC, especially the definitions.

I went through the PSA Pillai textbook only once, and then I made my
own handwritten notes from it.

For revision, I only referred to these handwritten notes and to my

LiveLaw notes. (I’ll elaborate on LiveLaw separately).

From a prelims’ point of view, I tried to memorize the sections as

much as possible. I did memorize the important sections as well as the
recently added provisions (such as Sec. 164A).

Code of ● R.V. Kelkar’s Same as PSA Pillai for IPC, I read R.V. Kelkar textbook once, and
Criminal Criminal made handwritten notes from it. After that, I used these notes for
Procedure Procedure revision. I picked it once again and tried to read as a novel, focusing
less on making notes and more on conceptual understanding and
● LiveLaw
maybe getting in-detail of the cases explained in it. I always noticed
that I found new information in the second read of any book.

When there is three-judge bench or a five-judge bench of the Supreme

Court, there are bound to be some key legal issues that the court will
answer, so I paid extra attention to such decisions (recent and
otherwise). Even in studying from R.V. Kelkar, one can see that the
 textbook emphasizes or cites certain cases more, so accordingly I tried
my best to read full-text judgments of such cases.

Specific ● Dr. AK Jain I was careful about the 2018 Amendment to the Specific Relief Act,
Relief Act, and therefore, read any old textbooks bearing it in mind. Otherwise,
● LiveLaw
Limitation the study was pretty straight-forward as earlier - I read the textbook
Act ● Articles on and made handwritten notes, made sure to read landmark cases
online sources full-text, and read recent cases also full-text.
like Mondaq,
Bar&Bench

Indian ● Dr. AK Jain I found that for certain topics, the jurisprudence in textbooks was not
Contract sufficiently covering the Indian case laws, so I tried to supplement
● LiveLaw
Act them by reading the landmark as well as recent cases from Indian
● College notes courts, especially on damages.

● Articles on I read full-texts judgments to understand sec. 73 and sec. 74. Sources
online sources like Mondaq were quite helpful to guide me to such cases.
like Mondaq,
Bar&Bench

Sale of Same as above

Goods Act

Arbitration ● LiveLaw I had a google doc for arbitration law that consisted only of case laws,
and especially because there can be conflicting decisions or decisions that
● Articles on
Conciliation have been overruled subsequently. It is very important to keep track of
online sources
Act the latest decisions, as well as the landmark decisions that explain the
like Mondaq,
foundational principles of arbitration. This was a subject that I
Bar & Bench
prepared online entirely. I did not refer to any textbook. There have
been amendments and important cases in recent years, and I found
most books to be outdated. The decisions of the Supreme Court
explain everything necessary to build a solid conceptual
understanding of this area.
 Evidence ● Principles of The principles of evidence law are quite well-established. My study
Act the Law of was foundationally from the textbook mentioned.
Evidence by
I regularly read about contemporary issues such as phone recordings,
Avtar Singh
evidentiary value of whatsapp chats, electronic evidence, etc., but
● LiveLaw otherwise, I found the general law to be well-established.

I read the recent decisions (with extra attention to facts of each case)
to see how appreciation of evidence was done in each case by the
courts.

Civil ● Civil Procedure I referred to the textbook (C.K. Takwani) extensively, including by
Procedure Code by C.K. reading full-texts of the cases that are cited in it.
Code Takwani
Unlike P.S.A. Pillai and R.V. Kelkar, I read C.K. Takwani around 4-5
● LiveLaw times because my grasp of CPC was not that strong. So I studied (and
revised) it multiple times. This was also because the subject carries a
lot of weightage.

Each time I read C.K. Takwani, if the summary of a case as given in it

seemed relevant, I would read the full-text too. Whenever I found a
topic to be relevant, I would read landmark Supreme Court judgments
on it and make notes of those judgments in addition to my notes from
C.K. Takwani.

Textbooks often only provide summaries, whereas my method was to

read the full-text itself, especially for a subject with high weightage,
and which requires a very clear understanding of the principles.

Registration ● Bookwards’ No additional remarks. The textbook and the recent cases available on
Act Lectures on LiveLaw was sufficient. I did not go in-depth as I had for other
Registration subjects like CPC and CrPC (I decided this based on my analysis of
Act the previous year papers). I did not spend more than 3-5 days on this
subject for completing the syllabus, and then revised it from
● LiveLaw
time-to-time.

Law of ● AK Jain No additional remarks. The textbook, full-text of landmark cases, and
 Torts, ● LiveLaw recent cases available on LiveLaw were my only sources.
Hindu law,
Muslim law

Copyright ● LiveLaw I could not find any reliable and updated textbook for many new laws,
Act, so I made my own notes.
● For Copyright
Trademarks
and I went through all landmark cases using online databases (such as
Act,
Trademarks - SCC online), especially the cases that had the highest bench strength.
Juvenile
Articles on I used a lot of online resources to find important cases, and then read
Justice Act,
online sources the full-texts and made notes myself. Whenever I found that a certain
Delhi Rent
like Mondaq, case was being cited heavily in other judgments, I would make sure to
Control Act,
Bar&Bench read that judgment full-text. This is also a habit I had towards all
Protection
subjects.
of Women
from I went through all decisions of the High Court of Delhi and the
Domestic Supreme Court that I could find on Livelaw, and as always said, I read
Violence Act as many full-texts as I could, and made my own notes from them. I
would later only revise from my notes.

For eg - For copyright, I had notes of around 130 pages. This included
a break-down of the provisions in my own language + summaries of
cases I found online.

I did not use any textbook for these subjects.

All subjects LiveLaw I’m repeating this because it was a huge part of my preparation.

The LiveLaw monthly digests and annual digests contributed heavily

to my notes and my revision, and helped a lot in the application-based
answers for mains.

I made my personal notes from reading these digests and those were
my main source of revision towards the end of my preparation.

I went from 2019 till 2022, but my most detailed notes were from
2020 to 2022. I did the monthly digests on a monthly basis only, I did
not leave it till the end because it is too bulky otherwise.

The last document I read before my Mains exam was my document

 comprising of summaries of the cases from the last two years
(Supreme Court as well as the High Court of Delhi).

Legal GK ● Indian Express Please note that legal GK in textbooks can be outdated. I used the
internet actively to make up to-date GK notes.
● Any publicly
available For static topics like books and authors, I relied on textbooks, but for
monthly GK current affairs including current appointments to important positions,
PDF I used the internet.

● Lexis Nexis’s
Legal GK

All subjects Some YouTube 1. Just reading for weeks and weeks got tiring, so I used Youtube
accounts I used - for the days when I wanted to break the monotony. Some days
I only listened to youtube lectures / webinars for 6-8 hours. I
● Beyond Law
listened to some videos even multiple times.
CLC
2. It was an excellent method of revision.
● Friday Group
Seshagiri Rao 3. For many laws like POCSO, Commercial Courts Act, the
amendment to the Specific Relief Act, etc., the textbooks were
● LiveLaw
not available so this (and cases) were my primary source.

Some other books I used -

1. Pariksha Manthan, Recent & Landmark Case Laws - Highly recommend for
revision. If you have the time, you can read the full-text of judgments that are
given in this book.

2. Pariksha Manthan, A Compendium of MCQs for Judicial Service Examinations -

Excellent to practice before prelims.

3. ASAP Edu’s Hindi Translation - Helped immensely with my english-to-hindi

translation.

—
 TIPS FOR PREPARATION

1. Textbooks can have errors or be outdated – when doubtful, double-check

online/from other reliable sources.

2. Use textbooks as your base - Using the textbooks and cases cited in them, make
your own notes (typed and/or handwritten) and keep adding to these notes from
the cases you read on your own.

I read full-text cases mostly in three ways -

● Cases cited in the textbook, not all cases because there are too many, but only the
ones I found to be important/landmark [The more time you have, the more number
of full-text decisions I think you should read]

● Cases that were reported in LiveLaw monthly digests i.e recent cases

● For subjects for which I had no textbook source, I have gone the simplest route of
googling for important cases , and by looking up cases that are cited by courts

3. Even after making notes from textbooks, I did re-read them once in a while,
depending on the depth needed, and on the weightage of that subject. As I said
earlier, I read C.K. Takwani way more than any other textbook – this helped with
improving my conceptual clarity as well as served as a revision each time.

4. Read full-text of judgments - I chose reading one full text judgment over
summaries of three judgments. Conceptual clarity, and understanding of how to
answer a fact-based question comes only from reading full-texts.

Any civil dispute, for instance, will have multiple aspects (CPC, limitation,
registration, and maybe even substantive issues from property law or contractual
law) – only full-text judgments gave me an idea of how to handle such multiple
laws being applied in the same set of facts.

5. Prepare for the exam keeping in mind the time at hand – How in-depth the
preparation is depends on how much time one has. The preparation strategy of a
graduate who is awaiting the next notifications, versus the preparation strategy of a
third-year law student are not going to be the same. If you have less time, try to at
least finish the syllabus the first time as soon as you can. And use the remaining
time to revise and go in-depth with time.
6. Practice answer-writing for Mains - I set certain schedules for myself, such as,
keeping sundays for answer writing and GK only. Through the course of
answer-writing practice, I paid attention to my writing speed as well as a uniform
structure of writing.

TIPS FOR TAKING THE EXAM

1. Prelims

i. I started my prelim preparation around one month before the prelims exam
date. I focused completely on bare acts and made my own ‘bare act’ notes.
These notes were one-liner, handwritten, and straight to the point. I
analysed the previous prelims papers again to understand the weightage of
each subject and spend the last month accordingly. Eventually, it took me
one day to revise 2-3 minor laws, and 3 days to revise major laws such as
CrPC, CPC.

ii. My notes for prelims and mains were different. Mains is testing your
conceptual clarity and your ability to apply law to a given fact situation. It
is about reasoning and writing. Prelims is testing your memory of the bare
act, the very text of the law (as well as your knowledge of Legal GK and
English).

iii. For Legal GK, I had used some textbooks mentioned above + lots of
Google + and monthly current affair PDFs (from which I used to note down
the legal GK portion in my notes).

Your GK notes should be ready, and regularly updated before the prelims
notification comes out. Don’t keep the last 30 days to start making the legal
GK notes. Keep your static as well as current legal GK updated on a
monthly basis and keep revising it too.

iv. I timed myself as per the actual exam timing and attempted previous year
papers in that time-limit. I purchased a few OMR sheets from the market
and attempted my test series/previous papers on these sheets only.

2. Mains
 i. Before you enter the exam hall, you should have a time-limit in mind, such
as, ‘I will spend 5-7 mins for a 5 marker’ and so on. Do not enter the hall
without a clear time-based strategy for your questions. This timelimit
comes from practice.

ii. Practice answer-writing with a structure in mind.

I followed the IRAC method in my mains paper for application-based

questions. You can look it up online. If you have not practiced this in your
law school exams, then do extra answer-writing practise with the IRAC
method or whichever method you decide for yourself.

For essay-type questions, I generally went with an introduction, body

(detailed description + some example / case) and a conclusion.

iii. In my experience, the marker of a good answer is always the reasoning and
clarity of law + how well you communicate the same which is your
structure and manner of writing. Beyond this, if you can add case names,
well and good, but that’s not something I did. My concepts were clear, and
my answers laid out what the rulings of the courts have been on that issue,
but I hardly recalled the exact case name of such a ruling. I think I wrote
one or two case names in all my three law papers combined.

iv. Since I had very less time, I focused more on law and less on the GK and
language paper. I was confident that my knowledge of GK [I read
newspapers (Indian Express) throughout my preparation in any case] as
well as my hold of english was decent enough to not require too much
practice of essays in the GK and language paper. On the other hand, my
grasp of written hindi was poor so I focused on that. Please be aware of
what needs more and what needs less attention when you start preparing.

Summary –

● Revision is key.

● Conceptual clarity + ability to apply law to facts is key (read full-text case laws to
achieve this).

● DJS Mains is an application based exam - bare acts are provided to you
individually in the mains (do not expend energy on rote learning the bare act).

● Practice answer writing using a specific method, do not free-write in the exam
(such as the IRAC method).
● The cases decided by the Supreme Court as well as High Court of Delhi in the 3
years preceding your mains exam date should be on your fingertips.

—x—