Supreme Court Internship in India: Every Route Explained

There is no single Supreme Court internship. There are at least three separate routes, each with its own eligibility and application process: a judge’s chamber, the Centre for Research and Planning, and the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee. People lump them together and then apply to the wrong one. Here is what each actually is.

Route 1: a judge’s chamber

This is what most students mean. You intern with one judge, reading listed matters and writing notes for the chamber.

Applications go directly to the chamber, usually to the Private Secretary, by email or sometimes through a Google Form that the chamber circulates. There is no central list, and the addresses that circulate on blogs go stale quickly, so check current information rather than copying a list from a 2024 post.

Applications are considered on a rolling basis and chambers work months ahead. Two months before your intended period is a sensible minimum, and three is better for May, June and December.

Send a formal email with your name, course, year, university, the exact dates you want and two or three lines on why that chamber. Attach a CV of about one and a half pages. A clear subject line that names the month is important, because these chambers receive a very large volume of applications.

If shortlisted, expect a short telephone or video conversation, or a request for a written note on a sample issue. Selection is not confined to national law universities. Chambers do take students from state universities and regional colleges, and the filter is usually the quality of writing.

Route 2: the Centre for Research and Planning

The CRP is the Supreme Court’s own research body. It assists judges with research, and its internship is a research posting rather than a courtroom one.

The published eligibility is specific. You must be enrolled in a law degree recognised by the Bar Council of India, be in the 4th or 5th year of a five year course or the 3rd year of a three year course on the dates you intend to intern, and be under 28. The minimum period is four weeks.

The application is more demanding than a chamber email. It asks for a CV of no more than two pages, a statement of purpose of 350 to 500 words on why the CRP and how it fits your plans, and a writing sample of 1,500 to 3,000 words demonstrating legal analysis. The sample can be an extract from something longer and does not need to be published. There may be a telephonic interview.

The internship is in person at the CRP offices in New Delhi, roughly 10:00 am to 5:30 pm on weekdays and a half day on Saturday. There is no stipend. Interns are bound by confidentiality during and after the internship.

If you want to do legal research seriously, this is the most substantive of the three. The writing sample is the whole application, so do not submit a moot memorial you wrote in a hurry.

Route 3: the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee

The SCLSC is constituted under Section 3A of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 and handles free legal aid at the Supreme Court. Its internship exposes you to legal aid work, which is a different and in some ways more useful picture of the court.

Students of three year and five year law courses at recognised institutions are eligible. The programme runs monthly through the year. The full day version runs 10:00 am to 5:00 pm with a minimum of 15 days, and there is a half day version from 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm with a minimum of 30 days. Not more than ten interns are taken at a time, which is why applying early matters.

The application goes by email to sclsc.intern@gmail.com with your bio data, but it must come with a recommendation or no objection letter from your Director, Head of Department or equivalent, signed and sealed, specifying the period. Direct applications without institutional backing are not accepted. Start the paperwork at your college before you write.

What a Law Clerk is, and why it is not an internship

You will see the Law Clerk cum Research Associate advertisement and wonder whether to apply. It is not an internship. It is a short term contractual engagement for law graduates, advertised by the Supreme Court with a formal recruitment process.

For the 2026 to 2027 term, the notification set an age range of 20 to 32, required a law degree from a Bar Council of India recognised institution, and stated initial remuneration of Rs 1,00,000 per month. Final year students could apply but had to produce the degree before joining. Selection ran through an online objective test, a subjective written paper and an interview, with an application fee, and applications were made only through sci.gov.in.

So it is a job you apply for after graduating, not something to do in your third year summer. Worth knowing about early, because people plan their final year around it.

What to expect if you get in

Long days and a lot of reading. In a chamber you will be summarising matters late into the evening before a heavy board. At the CRP you will be researching questions that may take a week. Neither gives you much visible output to show afterwards, which is why keeping your own careful notes matters.

None of these is paid. Delhi accommodation for a month is the real cost, and it is worth arranging before you accept rather than after.

A realistic note

The number of students applying to the Supreme Court every cycle is very large and the number of places is small. Treat a rejection as information about volume rather than about you. The students who eventually get in usually have two or three solid prior internships, something written that someone else has read, and the discipline to apply three months ahead rather than three weeks.

If you are building that record, written work is the part you control. Lexfolio’s virtual internship is designed around producing and publishing it.