Court Clerk recruitment is the most decentralised typing-test landscape in Indian government exams. Unlike SSC, which runs a single national pattern, every High Court issues its own notification, sets its own typing speed cutoff, picks its own software, and chooses its own font. A candidate who has cleared the Allahabad HC TST cannot assume a thing about the Patna HC pattern. This is the playbook for navigating the eight major HCs that recruit clerks, stenographers, and assistants in significant numbers.
Allahabad High Court
The largest recruiter among HCs by sheer volume — Allahabad HC notifications routinely advertise 1500-3500 posts spanning Junior Assistant, Stenographer Grade III, and Driver Grade IV. The typing speed requirement for Junior Assistant is 25 WPM in Hindi (Mangal or Kruti Dev, candidate's choice) over a 10-minute window. The cutoff is on the lower side because the actual differentiator is the written exam and the legal-knowledge component. The passage is typically a court-order extract — short sentences, dense punctuation, occasional Sanskrit-derived legal terms like "vyavastha", "adhiniyam", "dhara". Candidates who have only practiced on news-paper passages get derailed by the punctuation density.
Practice strategy: spend two of every five practice sessions on actual Allahabad HC sample passages from past notifications, available in the cause-list archives. The Allahabad HC typing test mode uses the genuine passage style.
Patna High Court
Patna HC's pattern for Assistant and Stenographer posts has been more variable than Allahabad's — recent notifications have specified 30 WPM Hindi or 35 WPM English, candidate's choice, in a 5-minute window rather than 10. The shorter window changes everything. There is no endurance phase, no minute-7 collapse to defend against. Pure top-end speed for five minutes.
The passage source is judgement-extract style — long compound sentences, repetition of party names ("the petitioner", "the respondent No. 2", "the learned counsel for the appellant"), and structured legal citations. The repetition is actually helpful — once you have typed "the petitioner" five times, your fingers know it. Patna HC notifications since 2023 have allowed both Mangal and Kruti Dev for Hindi candidates.
Madhya Pradesh High Court
MP HC at Jabalpur conducts recruitment for Stenographer Grade III and Assistant Grade III with 5,000-15,000 candidates appearing for typing tests in a single cycle. Typing speed: 30 WPM Hindi or 40 WPM English over 10 minutes. The recent notifications have moved exclusively to Mangal Unicode for Hindi — Kruti Dev is no longer accepted for new MP HC cycles since the 2024 notification. This is a significant break from the multi-state pattern and you should read the specific notification PDF carefully if MP HC is your target.
The passage style is mixed — court orders, administrative circulars, and occasional general-knowledge style passages have all appeared. MP HC also has a known reputation for strict invigilation and for rejecting tests where the candidate's submitted text shows large copy-paste blocks (which the software flags automatically).
Rajasthan High Court
Rajasthan HC at Jodhpur conducts Lower Division Clerk and Stenographer recruitment. Typing speed for LDC: 25 WPM Hindi (Mangal preferred, Kruti Dev still accepted in transitional notifications) or 30 WPM English in a 10-minute window. The notable Rajasthan-specific element: a separate Devanagari-numerals component. Rajasthan HC passages contain dates and case numbers in Devanagari numerals (१, २, ३) rather than Arabic numerals, and many candidates trained on Mangal struggle with the Devanagari numeral row mappings. Practice this specifically.
Calcutta High Court
Calcutta HC's pattern for clerk-grade posts is English-only typing, 30 WPM, 10 minutes — Hindi typing is not part of the assessment, which makes it the most accessible HC for non-Hindi-belt candidates. The passages tend toward British English legal style — "whereas", "hereinafter", "the said property" — which is uncommon in modern Indian newspaper text. Candidates from Bengal often find this easier than candidates trained purely on SSC-style English passages.
Madras High Court
Madras HC tests in English (typing) plus Tamil (handwriting and dictation, not typing). The English typing requirement is 30 WPM over 10 minutes for Assistant posts. Tamil typing tests have been introduced in pilot for some Stenographer Grade III cycles using the TamilNet99 layout, but this is not yet a stable feature across notifications. Read each notification independently.
Bombay High Court
Bombay HC's clerical recruitment is English-typing primary at 40 WPM over 10 minutes — the highest among major HCs. Marathi typing is required for some Stenographer posts using the Mangal-Marathi (Devanagari script for Marathi) variant, which behaves identically to Mangal-Hindi in keyboard mapping. The English speed cutoff at 40 WPM means Bombay HC is genuinely a typing-skill-led recruitment, not a written-exam-led one with a typing formality.
Karnataka High Court
Karnataka HC at Bengaluru conducts recruitment with English typing at 30 WPM and an optional Kannada typing component at 25 WPM using the Nudi or KP Rao layouts. The Kannada layouts are even more fragmented than Hindi — different software at different centres can mean different layouts. Confirm the exact software in the notification.
How to read a HC notification PDF
Five things to extract before you start preparation:
- Speed cutoff and language. Look for the exact phrase "minimum typing speed" and the language qualifier — "Hindi (Mangal)", "Hindi (Kruti Dev/Mangal)", "English", "Marathi (Devanagari)". The font specification, if any, will be in the same paragraph.
- Window duration. 5 minutes vs 10 minutes is a different exam. Most HCs use 10; Patna HC and some Stenographer cycles use 5.
- Backspace and error policy. Most HCs allow backspace. The error formula varies — some use "errors deducted from gross", others use "minimum accuracy 95% else disqualified".
- Software and venue list. If the venue is a specific NIELIT centre, check the keyboard model in advance.
- Sample passage in annexure. Most notification PDFs include a representative passage as an annexure. This is your single most valuable practice resource — drill it twenty times.
Cross-state preparation if you are applying to multiple HCs
Realistic approach: pick a primary HC based on your state and language strengths. Use that HC's pattern to drive your training. If you also apply to a secondary HC with a similar pattern (Allahabad and Patna both use Hindi-Mangal-or-Kruti-Dev with similar passage styles), use the same training. If the secondary HC has a meaningfully different pattern (Bombay's 40 WPM English vs Allahabad's 25 WPM Hindi), accept that one of them will get less prepared treatment. Trying to peak for four different HCs at once usually means peaking for none.
Drill the relevant module on the Court Clerk English typing or Court Clerk Hindi typing page, use the KD to Unicode converter if your old practice material is in Kruti Dev and the new HC notification mandates Mangal, and re-read the actual notification PDF every week — court HC notifications are amended through corrigenda more often than SSC, and the corrigendum is binding.