HIGH COURT BENCHES
With the fructification of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High
Court and the Jalpaiguri Bench of the Calcutta High Court, now
underway, the number of Benches of High Courts outside their principal
seat will go up to 15 Benches from the existing 13 Benches.
The Allahabad High Court has its Lucknow Bench functioning since
July 19, 1948 followed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court with its
principal seat at Jabalpur and Benches at Gwalior and Indore both
functioning since November 1, 1956, the Bomba High Court with
its Benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad and Panaji functioning since
May 1, 1960, June 27, 1984 and October 30, 1982 respectively,
the Rajasthan High Court with its principal seat at Jodhpur having
a Bench at Jaipur functioning since January 31, 1977, the Gauhati
High Court with its Benches at Kohima, Aizawl, Imphal, Agartala,
Shillong and Itanagar functioning since February 10, 1990, July
5, 1990, January 21, 1992, May 16, 1992, February 4, 1995 and
August 12, 2000 respectively.
As for setting up of new Benches of High Courts,
the extant policy provides that the Chief Justice of the concerned
High Court and the State Government must agree together to form
a Bench outside the principal seat of the High Court. Since the
Chief Justices of the Allahabad and Karnataka High Courts have
rejected the proposals of the two State Governments for constituting
a Bench of Allahabad High Court in Western Uttar Pradesh and a
Bench of Karnataka High Court at Hubli, there is no way the Centre
can do anything in this regard.
