Delhi High Court SPA and PA 2026: 150 Posts, Shorthand Marks, Pattern

The Delhi High Court notified 117 Senior Personal Assistant and 33 Personal Assistant posts on 2 September 2026 — its largest stenographer intake in recent cycles. Applications close on 5 October 2026 at 23:00. These are the highest-level posts among the court’s current recruitments listed on its direct-recruitment page (Levels 8 and 7), and they are decided above all by one skill: taking English dictation at 110 or 100 words a minute and transcribing it with few mistakes. This guide explains the four stages, turns the mistake rule into marks, sets out the vacancies category by category, and looks at what happened in 2023, when roughly half the posts were not filled.

SPA/PA 2026 vacancy notice (02.09.2026).

The Personal Assistant post has no General vacancy in 2026. There is no unreserved PA seat, so a General-category candidate cannot be appointed as PA in 2026. A General candidate targeting the court this year should apply for Senior PA, where 43 of the 117 posts are unreserved. The two posts need separate applications and separate fees (₹1,500, or ₹1,300 for SC/ST/PwBD, each); a candidate with 110-wpm speed can sit both.

Because the shorthand paper is worth 120 marks for SPA — more than the Main — the order of stages hides the order of importance. Two candidates who both clear the Main can end up far apart on shorthand alone: every full mistake costs four marks, so ten extra mistakes are a 40-mark gap — close to three times the whole 15-mark interview. The Main decides whether you are in; shorthand decides where you rank.

The notice sets three rules. Each full mistake costs 4 marks and each half mistake 2. The limit is 5% of the words dictated: 27.5 mistakes on the 550-word SPA passage and 25 on the 500-word PA passage. A candidate exactly at the limit scores 10; one over it is out. You get two attempts and the better counts. The notice does not list what counts as a full or a half mistake, so when you mark your own practice transcripts, count strictly — an omitted, added or substituted word as a full mistake — and treat any saving from half mistakes as a bonus rather than a plan.

The 2023 results show why the court may have re-weighted the exam. Of 60 SPA posts, 30 were filled from the published result; of 67 PA posts, 31. No ST candidate was recommended for SPA. Those counts are our reading of the result lists (names excluded), not an official summary. The cause is not stated anywhere; the likeliest explanation — our interpretation — is that too few candidates cleared the shorthand limit at speed. Unfilled SPA posts would also explain why the 2026 SPA intake nearly doubled.

The dictation passages the court has used are legal English — judgment and order text, with case vocabulary and long sentences. The SPA 2023 dictation passages are published among the court’s previous papers, one per shift; practise from them and from reported judgments rather than from general news. Build speed to at least 10 words a minute above the test speed, because a passage read at 110 feels faster in an exam hall. Count your mistakes by the notice’s own rules every time, and aim to finish transcription with time to read through, since the 45 minutes are for transcription on a computer. For the Main, the Hindi↔English translation is 20 marks — prepare both directions — and the essay and letter reward clear, formal English over length.

The typing test comes first and is only qualifying, but it removes people: 40 wpm for 10 minutes with no more than 3% mistakes. Stage dates were not announced on 28 September 2026. In 2023, the SPA cycle took about 17 months from notice to final result and the PA cycle about 26, so plan for 2027.