Kerala Judiciary — Previous-Year Papers

Every Kerala Judiciary paper we have, free to read and download. 7 prelims and 2 mains papers — each one also available as a clean, branded PDF.

← Full Kerala Judiciary exam guide, pattern & syllabus

Kerala Judiciary · Prelims

What the Kerala prelims actually tests

One objective screening paper — 100 questions × 2 marks = 200 marks, 2½ hours, with −1 negative marking per wrong answer and a ~1:10 filter; the marks never reach the merit list. Built on 700 questions across seven papers (2013–2023); bars show share of the whole paper and the line tracks each subject over those years. The bars are grouped by Kerala's fixed Part B / Part C / Part A architecture.

Code of Criminal Procedure 15.7%

Co-heaviest head — and it out-scores CPC in four of seven years, peaking at 20 in 2023. Arrest & bail (s.167 default bail, s.437/438/439), cognizance & complaints (s.190/200), warrant vs summons case, framing of charge, s.82/83. Master it cold.

Code of Civil Procedure 14.3%

The other co-leader — stable in a 12–16 band, then spiked to 19 in 2023. Application-driven: execution, decrees, res judicata, O.2 R.2, jurisdiction, written statements, amendment. Highest-return Part A subject.

Indian Penal Code 13.3%

Remarkably stable — 10–15 every single year. General exceptions, offences against the body, property offences (theft/extortion/CBT), definitional sections. A dependable, high-yield block.

Indian Evidence Act 11.6%

Steady with a mild upward drift — 6 in 2016 was the lone dip; 11–14 every year since. Confessions (ss.25–27), presumptions (ss.90/112/114), admissions, primary/secondary evidence, dying declarations.

Constitution of India 8.3%

Highly volatile and declining — from 15 (2016) down to just 3 (2022). Fundamental rights, writs, federal scheme. As polity fell, Legal GK rose to fill Part C.

Legal G.K. 6.4%

The risen Part C head — 1 in 2016 → 14 in 2022. Legal maxims, leading-case identification, jurists' autobiographies, medical jurisprudence and current legal awareness. Widen your reading.

Reasoning & Mental Ability 5.3%

The Part C tail — small and erratic (1–7/yr). Coding, series, situational-judgement and English-usage items. The 2022 figure also folds in the off-syllabus Limitation & Partnership stems flagged below.

Transfer of Property Act 6.6%

Strongest of the second-tier Part A heads but swingy (range 4–10, peaks 2017 & 2022). Mortgages, vested/contingent interest, doctrine of election, s.53A part-performance, lis pendens.

Contract + Specific Relief 10.7%

Two near-identical ~5% twins, ~10–13 combined a year. Contract: free consent, void vs voidable, guarantee & agency. SRA: specific performance, injunctions, and the 2018 amendment (substituted performance, special courts). Compact, learnable marks.

NI Act + Kerala Bldg (Lease & Rent Control) Actstate act 7.9%

The two smallest Part A heads — perennial, in every paper. NI Act is mostly s.138 dishonour & presumptions (ss.118/139). The Kerala BRC Act is the lone state statute — s.11 eviction grounds dominate. Small in volume, high in reliability; do not skip.

The paper is built on a fixed 40 : 40 : 20 skeleton — and procedure shares the top. Every year it splits almost exactly into Part A (civil substantive + the Kerala statute) 40, Part B (CrPC, IPC, Evidence) 40, and Part C (Constitution, Legal GK, Reasoning) 20. Unlike states with one runaway subject, Kerala has twin co-leaders — CrPC (15.7%) and CPC (14.3%), with CrPC ahead most years; stacked with IPC and Evidence, the four codes are ~55% of the paper. And watch the boundary: the 2022 paper drew on the Limitation Act and Partnership Act — both Mains-only subjects absent from the prelims syllabus — so keep a little defensive prep on the wider civil-law pool.

The maths punishes guessing harder than it looks, and the Mains is a different exam. Each question is worth 2 marks but a wrong answer costs −1 — half the value of a right one, a steeper effective penalty than the 25% used elsewhere; on a screen whose marks don't count, clear the gate and don't gamble on stems you can't narrow to two. On substance, all seven papers test the IPC, CrPC and Evidence Act — the new BNS, BNSS and BSA (in force since 1 July 2024) will carry Part B forward, so map each recurring theme section-to-section. And note what is not tested here: the Mains turns on Malayalam↔English translation, essays and civil/criminal judgment-writing (Papers I & IV) — none of which appears in this objective prelims.