It is extremely appalling to see that Centre right from independence in 1947 till now has outrightly favoured Eastern UP in giving it a single bench of high court in Lucknow even though Allahabad High Court itself is just about 200 km away while according step motherly treatment to West UP and the hilly areas adjoining West UP and the people there had to travel thousands of kilometers to Allahabad all the way to attend court hearings as there was not even a bench here till 2000 when it got high court itself as it was created into a separate state! 88 lakh people of Uttarakhand thus got justice finally after a long gruelling struggle which culminated after more than 50 years of independence! But West UP with more than 9 crore people are still struggling but even after more than 70 years of independence have not got even a single bench! This is the real rub which hurts the people living here the most!

Not many know that high court itself was in West UP in Agra when it was initially established in 1866 and after 3 years in 1869 was shifted to Allahabad. Even Justice Jaswant Singh Commission set up by former PM late Mrs Indira Gandhi and headed by former Supreme Court Judge Jaswant Singh had recommended 3 high court benches for West UP and hilly areas at Agra, Nainital and Dehradun but Centre did not approve even one bench at any of these 3 places even though it promptly accepted the recommendation to create a high court bench for Maharashtra at Aurangabad which already had benches at Nagpur and Panaji, at Jalpaiguri for West Bengal which already had bench at Port Blair for just about 3 lakh people living there and for Madurai in Tamil Nadu! If this is not open cheating with the more than 9 crore people of West UP and hilly areas adjoining West UP then what else is?

Very few know that Justice Jaswant Singh Commission had noted that 57% of pending cases were from West UP which alone explains why he recommended 3 benches but not one was created which is most despicable and reprehensible! How can any jurist ever dare to justify this? This worst discrimination meted out to the more than 9 crore people of West UP and hilly areas adjoining West UP compelled the lawyers of these districts to form Central Action Committee to pursue relentlessly the sacred struggle for getting the people their legitimate right of a high court bench in West UP! It was decided to observe every Saturday as “protest day” when lawyers would do no work and protest against the flimsy raw discrimination meted out to them and from May 1981 till now in July 2018 it has been continuing relentlessly but Centre still has cared a damn!

Rubbing further salt on the wounds of more than 9 crore people of 26 districts of West UP, Centre in 2008 decided to create 2 more high court circuit benches for Karnataka which already had a bench at Hubli at Dharwad and Gulbarga respectively for just 4 and 8 districts which in 2012 were made permanent benches but for West UP not a single bench has been created till now! This despite the irrefutable fact that Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson of UPA, Dr Manmohan Singh as PM and other Union Ministers all supported the demand for a bench in West UP! Former Union Minister RPN Singh even revealed after NDA came to power that Kapil Sibal as Union Law Minister had categorically supported the legitimate demand for a high court bench for West UP in Meerut but the then CM Akhilesh Yadav didn’t support it! Even Rajnath Singh who is now Union Home Minister had categorically assured lawyers of West UP that if BJP came to power in Centre and in UP a high court bench would be definitely created but even after more than a year and four months of BJP being in power in UP and more than 4 years in power in Centre, it has lamentably done nothing on this count except giving repeated assurances of creating it soon!

It is most heartening to note that BJP MP from Muzaffarnagar and former Union Minister Sanjeev Baliyan has himself raised the establishment of a high court bench in West UP in Lok Sabha and the more than 9 crore people of West UP are really thankful to him for it. This is bound to inject more energy into the sacred movement for a bench. We expect all the elected representatives from West UP to collectively raise this legitimate and most sacred demand in Parliament and every other forum unitedly! It is the people who will get speedy, cheap and affordable justice at their doorsteps if a bench is established soon in West UP!

Without mincing any words, Sanjeev Baliyan pointed out to Lok Sabha Speaker in Zero Hour that from his Muzaffarnagar constituency, Punjab and Haryana High Court, Rajasthan High Court, Madhya Pradesh High Court and above all even Lahore High Court in Pakistan which is about 498 km is nearer than Allahabad High Court which is 730 km away! He pointed out that about 15 lakh cases of West UP were pending which is more than many states pending cases! He pointed out that Maharashtra with 8 crore population has bench and 3 benches and Madhya Pradesh with 7 crore population has high court and 2 benches but West UP with more than 8 crore population has not even a bench!

Taking the bull by the horns, he did not shy away from even saying that the stiff opposition by lawyers from Allahabad High Court is no ground to deny West UP a bench and said that for 10,000 lawyers of Allahabad, the neck of 8 crore people of West UP cannot be stifled! Kanta Kardam who is Rajya Sabha MP too said that she will raise the demand for a bench in Rajya Sabha. She said that this is not a demand just of lawyers but is a justified demand of the people of West UP and creation of a bench here is imperative. Rajinder Agrawal who is BJP MP from Meerut rightly said that all MPs from West UP are united in demanding a high court bench for West UP. Even Gen VK Singh who is Union Minister and BJP MP from Ghaziabad has supported this legitimate demand and made the lawyers meet Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in March and he too supported the demand for a bench in West UP!

We all know how Sampoornanand who was UP CM had demanded the creation of a bench in West UP from Centre in 1955 but Centre refused even though a bench was created in Lucknow in 1948 for just 12 districts but for nearly 40 districts of West UP including those now in Uttarakhand not a single bench was approved by the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru! Even ND Tiwari as UP CM had proposed the creation of a bench in West UP but Centre again didn’t accept it! Mayawati as UP CM even proposed the creation of West UP as a separate state but again Centre didn’t accept it!

Now let us have a glimpse of the distance of different districts from Agra and Meerut. The distance from different districts of West UP till Allahabad varies from 600 to 800 km. But the distance from different districts to Meerut and Agra stands considerably reduced and it is Meerut which is close to most of the districts! The distance of different districts from Meerut and Agra is as follows: -
 

The lawyers of West UP are fighting people’s struggle who are worst affected as they have to travel more than 700 to 800 km on an average all the way to Allahabad to attend court hearings and many times trains get late and many times have to travel without reservation! How many people can afford to go by plane as some lawyers of Allahabad argue? Very few!

What purpose is served by creating a single bench for such a large state like UP which has maximum population more than 22 crore as UP CM Yogi Adityanath keeps mentioning repeatedly, maximum villages more than one lakh whereas no other state has more than 5000 villages, maximum MPs for Lok Sabha at 80, maximum MPs for Rajya Sabha at 31, maximum MLAs in Vidhan Sabha at 404, maximum MLAs in Vidhan Parishad at 104, maximum towns more than 900, maximum pending cases more than 10 lakh and here too West UP owes for more than half of them, maximum Judges in high court at 160, maximum PM since independence, maximum Mayors, maximum elected representatives at all levels and is among the largest states still has just one high court bench created by Jawaharlal Nehru more than 70 years back on July 1 in 1948 but not a single for West UP even 70 years later in 2018! How can this be ever justified?

Why even six months continuous strike by lawyers of 26districts of West UP thrice as they did in 2001, three to four months strike as they did in 2014-15, two months as they did in 2010 and one month as they did in 2009 apart from the strike every Saturday and even many times on Wednesday apart from the many strike for weeks every year has failed to shake Centre in taking any concrete step for creating a high court bench in West UP? Why even the right and laudable legal advice rendered by one of the most eminent jurist of India Soli J Sorabjee in his capacity as Attorney General that, “Centre is empowered to create a high court bench in West UP without any recommendation from the Chief Justice or Chief Minister or anyone else in this regard” failed to shake Centre in creating a bench in West UP promptly? Why Centre even disregarded what former Chairman of Supreme Court Bar Association BN Krishnamani said so eloquently that, “Only by the creation of a high court bench in any of the districts in West UP will the people living there get real justice”? If UP can’t be given more benches and West UP can’t have even one bench then all benches in India must be disbanded right now because it is the people of West UP who are suffering the most because of no bench here and have to travel the most!

It is indisputable that as per the Section 51 of the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, the Centre can create a high court bench in any of these 3 states – UP, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir directly by bringing it up in Parliament. Centre does not need any recommendation from State Government or the Chief Justice as has been very wrongly propagated for many decades by Centre as it wants to just avoid it on any specious pretext! After Centre declares bench for West UP, State Government has to just allot land for it. What a national disgrace that these very 3 states – Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar keep on grabbing the national news headlines for all the wrong reasons as crime incidents keep multiplying very rapidly and what is worst is Centre’s irrational stand to not allow a single more bench in any of these 3 states!

Why Centre can spend crores of rupees in creating 14 lane national highways so that people living in adjoining districts of West UP, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana stand to gain and time is reduced by just one or two hours but can spare no amount to create a bench here in any of the 26 districts of West UP so that people don’t have to travel whole night to Allahabad which is much more serious problem but Centre lamentably has paid scant attention to it? Why Centre even disregarded what former Chairman of Supreme Court Bar Association BN Krishnamani said that, “Only by the creation of a high court bench in any of the districts in West UP will the people living there get real justice”? Why Centre is ignoring even what Atal Bihari Vajpayee demanded the setting up of a bench in West UP as Opposition Leader way back in 1986 right inside Parliament?

Why Centre is ignoring even the legitimate voices of its own leaders from West UP like Union Minister Satyapal Singh who demanded 5 benches for UP at Meerut, Agra, Jhansi, Gorakhpur and Varanasi and not prepared to create even a single bench not just in West UP but in any hook and corner of UP except continuing with the one already at Lucknow? Why Centre is clinging with the recommendation made by the Law Commission in 1956 in its fourth report that more benches should not be created while not caring for the 230th report of Law Commission made in 2009 which recommended creation of more benches and here too why just UP is being singled out? Why Centre approved a fourth bench for just 6 districts in Maharashtra at Kolhapur which already had 3 benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad and Panaji but not a single more for UP even though other states which have 3 to 4 benches have just 1 lakh or even less number of pending cases which is much less than even pending cases of West UP and even in lower courts it is UP which tops the maximum pending cases states list with more than 60 lakh pending cases and whom Ban ki Moon while he was UN Secretary General slammed as “rape and crime capital of India”?

It is for all the reasons aforesaid that lawyers of West UP have again decided to go on strike on 6th , 7th and 8th August apart from staging demonstrations in front of Collectorate in every district on July 28! The agitation will further intensify if PM Modi refuses to meet lawyers of West UP soon as was earlier assured also by Union Ministers for which Centre will be squarely responsible! Why can’t PM give some food of thought to such an humongous problem pending since many decades and solve it in no time by just giving his assent for creating a high court bench in West UP?

To be sure, Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court Dilip Babasaheb Bhosale while hearing the horrifying case of rape of few women on national highway in Bulandshahar last year had slammed the law and order situation in UP and had stated that women in his state Maharashtra can roam anywhere alone even in night fearlessly but in UP a woman is not safe even with entire family yet Maharashtra has 4 high court benches and UP just one and West UP where maximum crime cases occur has none! How can anyone justify this?

Why can’t one bench at least be approved straightaway for West UP at any of the 26 districts? Why should the more than 9 crore people of West UP be denied “speedy Justice”, “justice at doorsteps” and “affordable cheap justice”? Why should they be made to travel so far even after more than 70 years of independence? Is there any valid answer for denying a bench to West UP? Just no valid answer!

Rajendra Singh Jani,
President Meerut Bar Association,
Chairman Central Action Committee for Establishment of High Court Bench in Western UP,
Chamber No. 7, Civil Court, Near Western Kutchery Gate, Meerut.