Interview: Aviral Umrao, a graduate of RMLNLU, on cracking UP Judiciary

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जीत की खातिर बस जूनून चाहिए;

जिसमे उबाल हो ऐसा खून चाहिए;

ये आसमां भी आयेगा ज़मीं पर;

बस इरादों में जीत की गूंज चाहिए।

 Congrats on your success in the UP Judiciary Exam! Please introduce yourself to our readers.

Thanks a lot for such wonderful wishes. I am Aviral Umrao from Village- Asdhana Banglan-Kanpur (U.P.). My father Mr. Vinod Kumar Umrao is an Income Tax Inspector and my mother is Home Maker. I did my High School and Intermediate from KDMA International School, Kanpur. I completed my graduation and post-graduation from National Law University, Lucknow.

I have previously selected in the Rajasthan Electricity Board, Jodhpur as Junior Law officer. I have cleared UP PCS-J 2018 exam this was my second Attempt.

What made you choose judiciary as a career option?

I have chosen law as an alternative to engineering because I did not performed well in physics, chemistry, and mathematics in my high school and intermediate. Belonging to a rural background and a middle class family, the common aspiration of every parents is that his son should become some government official and this was my driving force for becoming a judge

It is said that while one is preparing for judiciary, you have to go through phase of disappointments. How did you managed to stay motivated?

Yes, it is true that the phase of preparation is filled with disappointment and loneliness but I managed this phase because of company of some of my very good friends and support of my parents. Whenever, I used to feel down, I used to talk to my friends and family.

What was your overall strategy for UP Judiciary Prelims?

Prelims consist of two papers: Paper 1- General Knowledge; Paper 2: Law

The first paper which is of General Knowledge have a vast array of topics.

I choose selected topics like Indian national movement, geography, polity, last 12 months of current affairs, static GK of UP for convenience because I know that it was impossible to study all the topics in General Knowledge. Being the student of law, polity which I studied for Paper 2 got covered for Paper I. I referred GK today and Edristi- Navtara for Current affairs. I also solved previous year papers of UPPCS because the standard of questions is same in both exams.

Paper 2 consist of Law and it was of my primary focus as it carries 300 marks with limited syllabus.  I mainly read bare acts around 70-80 times and solved previous year judiciary paper of all states.

What was your overall strategy for the Uttar Pradesh Judiciary Mains exam?

The Mains of UP Judiciary consist of 5 papers and it has to be dealt with different strategy. Firstly I went through previous year papers to get idea of what kind of questions are asked in the examination as the pattern of questions differ with States.

I practiced a lot of answer writing and prepared model answers of all the questions asked in past year papers so that I don’t have to search materials or compile notes after prelims and I could just focus on revisions.

Paper 1 is of GK and it has set pattern of questions like people who are in news, places in news etc. I targeted and prepared certain topics of national and international importance. I made a list of arena of current topics which were asked in previous year papers and prepared all those arena in depth.

For Paper 2 which is of Language, I focused on reading newspaper and articles. This helped me to retain and be well versed with the right content for the writing essay. I followed Rajya Sabha TV Show and this show helped me a lot in formulating opinions which is necessary for essay-writing. Apart from this, I followed Vision IAS and saw videos of previously selected IAS officer and their strategies to write brilliant answer with usage of flow chart and diagrams. For précis writing, I used google search engine and jolted down basics methodology and practiced the same 3-4 times. For translation I use to translate passage from newspaper once a week.

From my previous failure in UPPCS-J, I learned that Paper 1 and 2 are very scoring paper with little extra effort and strategy.

I did an exhaustive study of laws for Paper 3 and 4. In UP Judiciary, most of the questions are straight forward and are not technical or on problem based. Therefore, I read all the topics and made pointwise notes along with case laws and revised them number of times.

Paper 5 consist of UP Local Laws. I completed Local Law before prelims and gave maximum time to them during preparation. I tried to prepare local laws more diligently than Paper 3 and 4 as it carries huge weightage of marks and one can score very well with little efforts.

How did you prepare for the UP Judicial Services Examination’s Interview?

I prepared for interview mostly from online sources which consist of watching self help videos for presentation, personality development etc. I prepared thoroughly Evidence Act which was my favorite subject in case the interview panel put forward question regarding my subject of interest.

I also revised my mains notes along with bare acts and then I prepared contemporary topics relating to the field of law.

Apart from this, I gave mock Interviews which helped me a lot to analyze my weakness and communicating skills.

How was your UP Judiciary interview and what sort of questions were asked?

My interview went on for around 20 minutes and the interview panel asked following questions.

1-      Where I did my law?

2-      What is self severing admission? And its provisions?

3-      Plea of guilt?

4-      Section 313 of CRPC?

5-      Section 306 of IPC and its relation with 304B of IPC and 113A and 113B of evidence Act.

6-      My LLM dissertation? And questions related to it?

7-      Appointment and Removal of US supreme Court Judges?

8-       Privacy related factual problem?

9-      Live in relationship?

10-  Admission and confession difference?

11-  Negligence in tort?

12-  Land revenue collection mode?

Anything else you’d like to tell our readers who are preparing for the Uttar Pradesh Judicial Services Examination.

Success has no short cut, prepare well and have faith in your preparation, success will definitely come to you.

 

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