Access to Justice: A Case for Establishing a Bench of Allahabad High Court in Western Uttar Pradesh

What the Constitution Says

Locally speaking, the demand for a bench is is often a matter of regional or political grievance. However, it is better if it is understood through the lens of Constitutional scheme. Article 21Right to Life and Personal LibertyA fundamental right in the Indian Constitution stating that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. It has been interpreted broadly to include various aspects of a dignified life, including access to justice. guarantees that, “no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” The judiciary has, on numerous occasions, held that life guaranteed under article 21 should be meaningful. Article 14Equality Before LawA fundamental right in the Indian Constitution guaranteeing equality before the law and equal protection of the laws within the territory of India, prohibiting discrimination. guarantees “equality before the law” and “equal protection of the laws.” A justice system that is realistically reachable for litigants residing near a High Court, but practically out of reach in terms of time, money, and effort for those living more than hundreds of kilometres away. It seriously raises a genuine concern. Article 39 AEqual Justice and Free Legal AidA Directive Principle of State Policy in the Indian Constitution, directing the State to secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity, and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid. directs the State to ensure that law should work in a way that promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity. The foregoing provisions also deal with free legal aid so that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities.

What the Supreme Court Has Said

The notion of access to justice is not a policy goal. It is a fundamental right as has been affirmed directly by the top court. In Anita Kushwaha v. Pushpa Sudan, (2016) the top court opined that access to justice means not only having a tribunal or forum, but having a tribunal that is fair, reasonably accessible in terms of distance, and capable of providing timely and effective remedies. The court has accepted that long distance can be the hurdle to availing the benefits of justice. Therefore, accessibility “in terms of distance” speaks directly to the situation of Wester Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, the top court, decades earlier, in Hussainara Khatoon Case (1979), held that a speedy trial is an essential ingredient of right to life under article 21. Hence, on the basis of these rulings, it can be argued that distance from the seat of a court is not a mere administrative inconvenience, rather, it is a barrier to justice and the State is constitutionally obliged to address the same.

Kolhapur and Ladakh: Proof That It Can Be Done

The objection most often raised against new benches is administrative including cost and judicial strength. The Kolhapur bench answers this objection with evidence rather than argument. Within its first year, it absorbed around a major chunk of pending matters and gave litigants from six districts a High Court bench within reasonable reach. The Ladakh bench also shows the same principle applied at the level of a Union Territory i.e. the political will exists and the decentralisation of a High Court’s bench is entirely workable within the current framework.

Western UP does not lack the numbers to justify similar treatment and here the case is stronger. A region contributing over half the litigation of one of the country’s largest High Courts, with a dense population living across more than twenty districts, meets and exceeds the threshold that justified benches elsewhere in the country.

Why This Is Ultimately a Constitutional Question

It would be a mistake to consider the demand for a Western UP bench as a regional effort. As per the top court’s reasoning in Anita Kushwaha, geographic inaccessibility is one of the aspects of the denial of access to justice. When a High Court is practically out of reach for over half its litigants, the harm falls hardest on those the framers of the Constitution were most concerned to protect through constitutional provisions such as articles 21, 14, and 39A. The poor, rural communities, women, the elderly, and farmers are hit the hardest since it is very difficult for them to bear financial, physical burden of repeated 600–700-kilometre journeys to access justice.

The precedent now exists — twice over, in Kolhapur and in Ladakh — that decentralisation is administratively very much feasible. Moreover, the move does not require extraordinary constitutional machinery. What remains is institutional will. Justice that exists on paper but is 600-700 kilometres away is, for many litigants, no justice at all. If the Constitution’s promise of equal access to justice is to mean anything for the people of Western Uttar Pradesh, the seven-decade-old demand for a High Court bench deserves to be considered not as a regional grievance, but as the constitutional question it actually is.