It is most baffling to note that Centre since 1947 till 2018 has consistently, callously, blatantly and brazenly disregarded the numerous hardships faced by the more than 9 crore people of West UP in travelling nearly 700 to 750 km on an average all the way to Allahabad just because there is no high court bench here! This despite the clinching fact that Justice Jaswant Singh Commission appointed by former PM late Mrs Indira Gandhi and headed by former Supreme Court Judge Jaswant Singh had categorically recommended 3 high court benches for UP – one in West UP at Agra and 2 in hilly areas of now separate state called Uttarakhand at Nainital and Dehradun! What is even more baffling is that Centre had just no problem in creating a high court bench in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Jalpaiguri in West Bengal and Madurai in Tamil Nadu!

This is not the first instance of West UP and UP getting a raw deal! It was way back in 1955 that Sampoornanand who was the then UP Chief Minister had very strongly recommended a high court bench in West UP at Meerut but Centre straightaway poured cold water on it even though Centre had no objection to a high court bench being created in Lucknow which is just about 200 km away from Allahabad where high court itself was located and that too way back on July 1 in 1948! If this is not step-motherly treatment of West UP and of the hilly areas now called Uttarakhand the people of whom had to travel thousands of kilometers all the way to Allahabad then what else is? This alone explains why the people of Uttarakhand decided to separate from UP and till 2000 had waged agitation for a bench in unison with the lawyers of West UP! Who can deny this?

The step-motherly treatment does not stop here only! Centre decided in 2012 to create 2 more benches for Karnataka at Dharwad and Gulbarga for just 4 and 8 districts respectively which already had a bench at Hubli even though they never agitated vigorously for a high court bench but blatantly and brazenly disregarded the aspirations of more than 9 crore people of more than 26 districts of West UP for a high court bench here! Karnataka has just 6 crore population and less than 2 lakh cases pending whereas UP has more than 22 crore population and West UP alone has more than 9 crore population and more than 5 lakh cases pending still one bench Centre is not approving for it on one pretext or the other! Former Union Minister RPN Singh said that Kapil Sibal who was Law Minister in UPA regime wanted to create a high court bench for West UP at Meerut but UP CM Akhilesh Yadav didn't agree! This is nothing but just passing the ball of decision making in the court of another!

Centre must stop this open farce once and for all! Why Centre can approve one more bench for Maharashtra for just 6 districts at Kolhapur which already had 3 benches at Aurangabad, Panaji and Nagpur but not a single more for UP especially for West UP which has none? Why Centre brazenly mocks the recommendations of Justice Jaswant Singh Commission in this regard? Why benches were created in other states on the basis of this same Justice Jaswant Commission? If this is not step-motherly treatment then what else is?

Why is Centre not creating more high court benches as recommended by 230th report of Law Commission of India in big lawless states like UP, Bihar and Rajasthan among other states? Why only Karnataka and Maharashtra have been allowed to enjoy the fruits of 230th report recommendations of Law Commission? Why Nehru had the guts to create a bench just about 150 km away from Allahabad at Lucknow 70 years back in 1948 but no PM till now 70 years later in 2018 has the courage to set up a bench anywhere in any other part of UP especially in West UP even though Union Minister like Home Minister Rajnath Singh has always supported the demand for a bench in West UP and had assured that if his party comes to power in Centre and in UP then bench would be created certainly!

Another Union Minister Satyapal Singh demanded 5 benches for UP at Meerut, Agra, Varanasi, Jhansi and Gorakhpur inside Parliament and Rajinder Aggarwal who is BJP MP from Meerut also demanded benches at Meerut, Agra and Gorakhpur and so also other MPs from West UP keep demanding benches regularly only to be ignored time and again? Is this all nothing but a farce? Why then is Centre callously disregarding all this? Why BJP national President Amit Shah himself had categorically assured the lawyers of West UP a long time back that a high court bench would be created in West UP?

Why a high court bench at Port Blair for just 3 lakh people, a high court for just 6 lakh people of Sikkim with about just 100 cases pending, for just few lakhs of people of people in Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura as also in many other smaller states? Why a high court now for Uttarakhand since 2000 for just 88 lakh people but not even a bench for more than 9 crore people of West UP? Why such a raw and third rated treatment for them?

Why for just 2 districts of Goa – North and South Goa, a high court bench can be created in Panaji but for 26 districts of West UP a high court bench cannot be created in Meerut? Similarly why for just 6 districts in Maharashtra which already had 3 benches at Aurangabad, Nagpur and Panaji a high court bench fourth in number can be created at Kolhapur but not a single in Meerut for 26 districts? Why is it ignored that the population of West UP which is more than 9 crore is more than any other state except Maharashtra, Bihar and UP of which it itself forms a part and here too the area of West UP with 98,000 square km is more than that of Bihar with 94,000 square km still it has not even a single bench at Meerut whereas other states have high court itself and benches also? Why this glaring disparity?

Eminent and senior advocate Rohitashawa Kumar Aggarwal who was the Chairman of High Court Bench Sangharsh Samiti West UP and was also the President of Meerut Bar elected for fifth time last year and also member of UP Bar Council who earlier was also the Chairman of UP Bar Council clearly elucidates the legal position on this often misrepresented topic of who is empowered to create a Bench of High Court in West UP by elegantly pointing out that, "Central Government by bringing a Bill can directly give a Bench. This arrangement has been done for three states in our country – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir. On this very basis, Ranchi was earlier given a Bench. Chief Minister before placing his views on such an important matter should have first gathered full information on it." Who can deny or dispute this? Not just Yogi Adityanath who is the Chief Minister of UP but even Centre itself should take serious note of what the learned and senior lawyer and President of Meerut Bar has said so categorically and convincingly!

Going forward, Prabodh Sharma who was Coordinator of Central Action Committee for creating a High Court Bench in West UP and was also General Secretary of Meerut Bar too very eloquently pointed out that, "The statement of Chief Minister is not logical. Supreme Court has no role to play in the creation of a High Court Bench in West UP. According to the State Reorganisation Act 1956, the full right for declaring the creation of a High Court Bench in 3 States along with Uttar Pradesh is vested with Centre and not with anyone else." This should clear the legal position entirely which has been stated by learned and senior lawyers with many decades of experience as a lawyer!

Rajinder Singh Jani who is currently the President of Meerut Bar and is also the Chairman of Central Agitation Committee for High Court Bench representing all the districts of West UP told journalists that, "We met the CM in the presence of State Cabinet Minister Suresh Rana and Muzaffarnagar MP Sanjiv Balyan but to our utter surprise, we found the CM to be completely ignorant of the procedures involved in the formation of HC bench in a state. CM said that the issue could be resolved by the Supreme Court only and he had little role to play. But according to the rules it is a state's prerogative to send a proposal passed by the assembly to the Centre for the formation of a bench. Now we will have to meet the Prime Minister in Baghpat." In contrast, see the Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis who himself a lawyer understands the intricacies took no time in creating a high court bench for just 6 districts at Kolhapur and has also reiterated his support for a high court bench in Pune. Every CM must emulate Fadnavis!

Every state must have CM like Fadnavis who understands the interminable sufferings faced by the litigants due to no bench which alone explains why he wants one more bench for Maharashtra at Pune also which already has 4 benches! But in UP the CM are not ready to create even one more bench anywhere other than at Lucknow created in 1948! If Lucknow is capital then is Bhopal not capital of Madhya Pradesh, is Dehradun not capital of Uttarakhand, is Bhubaneshwar not capital of Odisha, is Thiruvananthapuram not capital of Kerala then why do all these big and deserving cities who are better than Lucknow in many ways not have either high court or even a bench? Centre must introspect!

KK Pahwa who is veteran criminal lawyer and one of the pioneers of the West UP High Court Bench movement laments most emotionally that, "Western UP still does not have a high court bench. Think of this, the region is 98,933 sq km in area. It is bigger than countries like Hungary, Portugal and Jordan. Plus, the population of western Uttar Pradesh is huge. We have been demanding a high court bench for so long. Successive governments have done nothing about it."

It has been more than one year since Yogi Adityanath came to power and 4 years since NDA came to power in Centre but we don't see BJP setting up a Bench anywhere not just in West UP but anywhere in UP! It seems determined to not allow just like Congress the creation of even a single high court bench in UP other than the one that already exists at Lucknow knowing fully well that UP has maximum population more than 22 crore as CM Yogi keeps proudly declaring every now and then, maximum pending cases in High Courts more than 10 lakhs, maximum pending cases in lower courts more than 65 lakhs, maximum PM, maximum MPs, maximum MLAs both in Vidhan Sabha and Vidhan Parishad, maximum Mayors, maximum districts, maximum villages more than one lakh, maximum cities, maximum crime and here too West UP alone owes for more than 52% of pending cases, maximum lawlessness due to which even UN secretary General Ban ki moon had slammed UP as the "rape and crime capital of India", maximum riots as we saw in Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Bareilly, Agra, Meerut all in West UP, maximum Judges, maximum courts and what not still has just one High Court Bench created by our first PM Jawaharlal Nehru way back in 1948 at Lucknow and not anywhere else even 70 years later!

This despite the fact that former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had thundered in Parliament way back in 1986 as Opposition Leader demanding the creation of a High Court Bench in West UP and Yogi Adityanath who is now UP CM also himself thundered while demanding for a High Court Bench at Gorakhpur way back in 1998 right inside Parliament but 20 years later we don't see any High Court Bench anywhere being created other than the one which Nehru created 70 years ago in 1948 at Lucknow! Can this be ever condoned? Certainly not!

Who is the think tank in BJP who is favouring more temples for UP, more statues and idols for UP, more anti-Romeo squads for UP, more renaming of old cities like Prayagraj for Allahabad etc and more everything other than a High Court Bench in any hook and corner of UP? Who is the think tank in BJP who feels that the oldest High Court of India – the Allahabad High Court which completed 150 years in 2016 and which is the biggest court in whole of Asia should have just one High Court Bench at Lucknow as it deserves no more bench even though it has maximum pending cases which is more than 10 small states put together and yet small high courts should have 5 or 4 or 3 benches but Allahabad should have just one! Just recently we saw how a young lawyer Rajesh Srivastava was gunned down in Allahabad in market itself while he was going to court by criminals fearlessly because criminals know that cases keep pending in Allahabad high court for many decades as there is just one bench at Lucknow and even Judges post more than half of them just keep lying vacant in Allahabad high court itself!

Why Centre is taking no steps to contain the irreversible damage ushered in due to Centre's own inaction! Why Centre inspite of getting such a huge mandate in UP more than two-third which was appreciated even by Donald Trump who is US President still is showing no interest to create even a single high court bench not just in West UP but anywhere in UP? Why Centre wastes absolutely no time in ensuring that elections are conducted in every seat falling vacant either in State Assembly or in Parliament! This itself is enough to highlight Centre's step motherly treatment for judiciary which alone explains why the lawyers of Calcutta High Court have been on strike for more than 2 months and so also are the lawyers of Odisha High Court! But still Centre is refusing to open its eyes and see the clear writing on the wall!

Both Centre and State of UP have miserably failed the largest population of the country by repeatedly failing to act on this by creating more Benches so that the "poor and needy people are able to avail of speedy justice at their doorsteps as envisaged in Article 39A of the Constitution! Yet they are always ready to cough up excuses and excuses for not setting up more High Court Benches in UP especially West UP where lawyers of more than 26 districts are compelled to repeatedly go on strike as they did for 6 months in 2001, for 4 to 5 months as they did in 2014-15, for one to two months as they did in 2009 and 2010 and for many weeks as we see every year apart from the 37 year old strike on Saturday since May 1981 till May 2018 and many times even on Wednesdays! In which part of India have lawyers waged agitation for so long? Lawyers are fighting for people's welfare so that they are saved from the unnecessary trouble of travelling so far many times without reservations in trains because poor and medium class people cannot afford to go by plane and then staying expenses, hiring lawyer expenses in addition to other expenses! Centre must wake up its ideas and create a bench straightaway anywhere in West UP as the lawyers too have said time and again that place is not the criteria but it must be set up soon! It brooks no more delay!

Sanjeev Sirohi, Advocate,
s/o Col BPS Sirohi,
A 82, Defence Enclave,
Sardhana Road, Kankerkhera,
Meerut – 250001, Uttar Pradesh