Judicial work has been severely affected in courts in Uttar Pradesh for past few months over demand for creating a separate Bench of the Allahabad High Court for western districts.
While on Friday lawyers in Allahabad ended their over three-week long strike opposing the move, their counterparts in western districts are likely to step up their agitation after the High Court decided to dissolve a committee of judges set up to look into the feasibility for creating the new Bench.
Work in the Allahabad HC, which was affected due to lawyers' strike since December 14, is likely to resume from Monday, serious disruptions of judicial work is likely to happen in areas like Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Noida, Agra, Aligarh and Ghaziabad with lawyers deciding to oppose the dissolution of the committee that was set up after the Centre had asked the HC to find out the possibility of setting a Bench to facilitate people of western parts of the state.
A press release issued on Thursday night by Allahabad HC Registrar (Protocol) A.K. Srivastava stated that a resolution to dissolve the committee was passed at a meeting of the High Court's Administrative Committee. The Administrative Committee, while recording that no proposal has been received from Uttar Pradesh government for constitution of a separate Bench, “resolved that the Committee which was constituted on September 06, 2014 stands dissolved,” the release added.
The dissolved committee, comprising several judges, was set up by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud upon receipt of a letter from the then Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who had referred to a communication sent by his predecessor Kapil Sibal to the then Chief Justice in 2013 and asked for comments on the same. Lawyers in Allahabad and at its Bench in Lucknow have been strongly opposing the move.
This decision to dissolve the committee is likely to worsen situation in western UP. Already, judicial work of Meerut that has been affected for weeks due to lawyers' protest has been shifted to Moradabad. With lawyers deciding to take to streets, courts in at least half-a-dozen districts would be paralysed.
For couple of years, lawyers have been blocking roads and holding demonstrations in various parts of western U.P. to press for their demand of a separate Bench.
Situation is also likely to take a political turn as at least two ministers in the Narendra Modi government – former Army Chief V.K. Singh who is MP from Ghaziabad and Ram Shankar Katheria who represents Agra in Lok Sabha – have been openly supporting setting up of HC Bench in the western region.
Two Central ministers are openly supporting setting up of HC Bench in the western region
