It cannot be ever denied that the utter lack of High Court Benches in big, deserving and populated states like UP and Bihar among others is the lifeblood of gathering of huge pending cases and so creating more High Court Benches in the interest of justice should definitely be the topmost priority of every government in Centre as was recommended also most remarkably by the 230th Report of the Law Commission of India in needy States like UP and Bihar. Same is the case with Rajasthan which has just one High Court Bench at Jaipur, Odisha which has no High Court Bench and so on! It certainly merits no reiteration that both the judiciary and the executive must work in tandem to ensure that more High Court Benches are created at the earliest especially in States where there is a desperate requirement of the same like the lawless Bihar where there is none, UP which tops all the States in having maximum pending cases more than 10 lakh pending cases and here too especially West UP which owes for more than half of the pending cases of UP as was even acknowledged by the Justice Jaswant Singh Commission headed by former Supreme Court Judge and still we find that not a single High Court Bench created here in last 75 years!
What torments my mind most is: Why Centre maintains a deafening and conspiratorial silence on setting up of High Court Bench in West UP? Why Centre is only interested in having a say in the appointment of Judges in the Apex Court but wants to take just no initiative for setting up more High Court Benches in needy States like UP and Bihar? Why inspite of ex CJI Ranjan Gogoi clarifying while hearing a PIL filed by a woman lawyer KR Chitra in November 2018 on setting up a High Court Bench in West UP while conceding the dire need of it clarifies that it is for Centre to decide on it yet Centre till more than four years later has done just nothing on it even as 2023 is about to start?
It is undeniable that Centre cannot just keep waiting for 100 years before thinking of taking definite steps to create a High Court Bench in West UP which is definitely the crying need of the hour and deserved to be created right at the time of independence like Lucknow which inspite of being so close to Allahabad in Eastern UP was created way back in 1948 on July 1! Why Centre never displays the same level of propensity in creating more High Court Benches as it displays in always asserting its paramount right in having a dominant say in the appointment of Judges in the Apex Court? Centre has a lot of explaining to do on this score.
Speaking for myself, I don’t think that there can be a better way of murdering Article 14 of our Constitution which guarantees right to equality as a fundamental right than to insist that only Eastern UP alone is suitable best for having both High Court at Allahabad and a Bench also just about 200 km away at Lucknow most famously known as “Nawab City” and all other regions were legally worthless not fit to be given even a single Bench! Centre for 53 long years and so also all CJI from 1947 till 2000 were dead determined most crazily that no High Court Bench would ever be allowed to come up neither in West UP nor in hilly areas of undivided UP due to which people of hilly areas most horrifyingly were made to travel thousands of kilometers all the way till Allahabad and yet no CJI or PM ever felt anything wrong in this as they all very strongly believed that Eastern UP alone is “Real Crown” fit to have both High Court and a Single High Court Bench! Can there on earth be anything more senseless than this!
It must be asked: When people of hilly areas launched massive agitations then how come Centre who as long as the hilly areas formed part of UP till 2000 did not deem it fit enough to be given even a High Court Bench and all of a sudden thought it fit enough to be given High Court itself at Nainital when it was separated from UP as a separate State? Did Centre not display double standards of the worst kind? If Centre had well in time created High Court Benches at Dehradun and Nainital respectively as recommended also by Justice Jaswant Singh Commission, people would not have revolted and agitated for Statehood and Uttarakhand which is a separate State since last more than 22 years would still have been part of UP!
But alas! That was not to happen, all thanks to the powerful lobby who opposed setting up of a Bench there and so also CJI and Centre who did just nothing on this score! The result is before all of us to see for ourselves!
It must also be asked: Is this is what Centre is waiting to happen in West UP? It cannot just maintain a deafening silence on it! Is it not the biggest stain on Indian democracy that a peaceful State like Maharashtra has multiple High Court Benches with more and more being added to it and State like UP whom former UN Secretary General Ban ki Moon termed as “rape and crime capital of India” has least High Court Benches in India just one and that too so close to Allahabad at Nawab City and nowhere else since last 75 years? This despite the irrefutable fact that it is UP which tops the States list among all the States in having maximum pending cases and Maharashtra on the contrary tops the States list in Justice Index Ranking!
Should we all not be ashamed of this that no CJI from 1947 till 2022 and so also no PM has ever dared till now to take any concrete step in this direction for reasons which they cannot dare utter in the open? Even now no CJI and no PM is prepared to do anything on this score no matter the tall talks most eloquently and elegantly by the incumbent CJI Dr DY Chandrachud who too hails from Maharashtra. The former Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court – Justice Dilip Babasaheb Bhosale who hails from Maharashtra while as Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court was free, frank and forthright enough to concede that women and girls are safe in Maharashtra even in night and when all alone but in UP they are not safe even in broad daylight with their family on national highway while hearing a case of Bulandshahr in West UP where there was broad daylight looting on national highway and assaulting of women and girls with their family!
What is the most crowning irony is that still Centre and CJI finds nothing wrong in UP having least High Court Bench and Maharashtra having maximum High Court Benches! Why CJI never ventures to speak on this too? Why he prefers to always maintain a conspicuous and deafening silence on it? This is the real rub!
What is even most shocking is that the incumbent CJI Dr DY Chandrachud who himself hails from Maharashtra and who was Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court for nearly 3 years as he himself concedes yet I am most astonished and aghast to note that he never felt the dire need of a High Court Bench in West UP where lawyers have been agitating since ages or in Bundelkhand or in Purvanchal and feel that there is nothing wrong in UP having just one Bench! Nothing on earth can be more frustrating than this as now what can one expect from Apex Court where CJI himself finds no discrimination in this and never deems it fit to even speak his mind on this! Why CJI never feels ashamed on this? He must feel so!
I would in fact urge upon our CJI Justice Dr DY Chandrachud to read enlightening articles like “Why Does Maharashtra Have Maximum Benches And UP Minimum Benches?” written by my good friend and colleague in Meerut Bar – Advocate Sanjeev Sirohi in “The Sunday Guardian newspaper” dated December 27, 2020 and so also by my distinguished senior and former General Secretary of Meerut Bar Advocate Tarun Dhaka in All India Reporter (AIR) Law Journal June 2015 edition titled “How Can It Happen That UP Has Least High Court Benches In India And West UP Has None?” and there are so many such enlightening articles written by senior advocates to gain an insight into it! Let’s still not give up our hope in him for he has still a long tenure ahead of him! Let’s fervently hope still that better sense prevails on learned CJI who so rightly pinpoints so many inadequacies in the Judges of UP and so also the infrastructure so very rightly but why nothing not even a word we hear on setting up of more High Court Benches in UP! This is the real rub!
If West UP cannot have a High Court Bench then definitely it would not tantamount to an exaggeration if I say that all the High Court Benches in India must be disbanded! But that would certainly not be feasible and would rather be disastrous! So in all fairness, CJI Dr Chandrachud must rise above all narrow and partisan considerations and do full, final and fair justice with the more than 10 crore people of West UP by approving at least a High Court Bench here as was done so very easily for Karnataka which has just 6 crore population yet has High Court and 2 more Benches created at Dharwad and Gulbarga for just 4 and 8 districts respectively in 2008!
Not one High Court Bench has been created after the 230th report of Law Commission of India recommended setting up of more Benches in 2009 and nearly 14 years later no Bench created till now which has left me completely ashamed, aghast and appalled! The real question we need to address is: Why is Centre dead determined not to set up a High Court Bench not just in West UP but in any nook and corner of UP except the one that already exists? Nothing is cast in stone! Centre must also understand that change is the essence of life and India can’t simply turn the clock back and refuse to create more High Court Bench in most needy States like in UP and lawless Bihar on one pretext or the other.
My worry and anxiety is only this: How long will the litigants of 30 districts of West UP keep travelling right till Allahabad to seek justice which means whole night and half day due to Centre trotting out one excuse or the other so as not to create a High Court Bench? I am still struggling to comprehend the logic as to why only Eastern UP has both High Court and a single Bench but no other place in Western UP or in Bundelkhand or in Purvanchal has been deemed fit to be given a High Court Bench? The reasons for denial of Bench to West UP do not bear scrutiny!
The unvarnished truth of the matter is: Both the Apex Court and the Centre are equally culpable for not ordering the creation of Bench in West UP and other needy regions in the paramount interest of justice. Why the discrimination of the worst kind was perpetrated most disgracefully by Centre by partially enforcing the recommendations of Justice Jaswant Singh Commission in States like Maharashtra which already had multiple Benches at Nagpur and Panaji and yet one more at Aurangabad was created in 1985 but for undivided UP for whom it recommended maximum three Benches not one was allowed to come up in any nook and corner of undivided UP?
It will certainly do the more than 10 crore people of West UP a world of good if a High Court Bench is created here which is essential also. I have a very dim view of the abject manner in which both Centre and Apex Court have just glossed over the dire need of a High Court Bench in West UP. Yet that in no way means that I will become a pessimist!
But the truth of the matter still remains: Discrimination of the worst kind has been perpetrated on states like UP and Bihar by denying it multiple High Court Benches and it cannot be overlooked, hidden, reversed or deleted but certainly things can still be salvaged by granting multiple Benches in both these States. Supreme Court is the paramount guardian of fundamental rights that enforces equality and if it does not speak up for the rights of the poor, deprived and marginalized then who will respect it? For how long will Centre behave so biasedly? The point that I am trying to really make is: For how long will Centre just keep on inventing excuses so as not to create a Bench in West UP? Centre must act now finally!
Parvez Alam