Shifting My Lords

                                                                         Where to go...

Corridors of the Chief Justices’ block were rife with the rumors and utter confusion of the shifting of the High Court of Uttarakhand from Nainital to foothills, till the time Chief Justice himself called meeting and invited a selected lot to share his views on the subject!

Like many other juniors, neither I had any expectation nor was invited so I have no first-hand knowledge what happened in the meeting. Although I heard our generous Chief Justice warmly welcomed even non invited attendees and everybody got tea.

It is a matter of grave importance for all of us so I could not stop myself from calling few attendees and enquire as to what happened there. It is not a quality of advocates to easily agree on one perspective and interpretation. As expected I got as many versions of ‘what Chief Justice actually meant’ as many people I asked. Everybody had its own distinct understanding of his words as if he had spoken in Chinese. Advocates who had the interest in Haldwani understood that High Court is shifting to some place called “Gola Paar ! Advocates who are interested in less travelling from Haridwar and Dehradun declared that it is shifting to someplace called ‘Peerumadara’ near Ramnagar! Third and most faint version was the advocates who actually live in Nainital and obviously they understood that court is not going anywhere!!! So no fair and unbiased account of “what Chief Justice actually meant” could come out of CJ block.

Although demands of benches of the High Courts has long been heard in different parts of the country based on the concerns of size of state and vast, often unmanageable, territorial jurisdictions given to large High Courts. Demand of shifting of whole High Court is unique and perhaps first of its kind the history of the nation (barring exceptions in British period).

Principle and novel argument in favor of shifting of High Court is that there are no more court rooms for filling up the vacancies of present and future Judges. Secondly and longstanding argument is that Nainital is a difficult and expensive place for litigants to reach. Rest all other arguments are parochial and not even worth mentioning.

Let’s see who can actually shift or make a bench of the High Court. The Constitution of India in Article 214 provides “ There shall be a High Court for each State”. It does not provide for any place of sitting of the High Courts. The Uttar Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2000 under Section 26 provides the principal seat of High Court to be notified by a Presidential Order. Since from the day of inception this High Court is in Nainital so we may presume that in this case President notified an order making Nainital/present place as a principal seat of High Court. Sub Section (3) gives discretion the Chief Justice of the High Court to make a bench with the approval of the Governor of the state.

Coming back to the present situation, as far as I recall, while arguing the matter before the court related to advocates strike in the state more particularly by the advocates of Dehradun and Udham Singh Nagar our Chief Justice openly shared his views that he has never promised anybody under the sun to make any bench of this High Court in Dehradun, any rumor that Chief Justice has promised a bench of High Court in Dehradun in lieu of end of strike is utterly false. Not much time has passed to this open expression by the Hon’ble Chief Justice and I have not seen any extraordinary intervening happening in the state warranting the change of views so soon by such high office.

So now only issue remained to be discussed is the shifting of whole High Court due to lack of space! And inconvenience of litigants!

Mismanagement often results into deficiency. It is true to all kind of resources and space/land is also one of them. Absence of more court rooms in our High Court may also be due to not proper utilization of existing space but certainly not because of lack of space in the premises. It is also beyond any understanding that to fill the existing vacancies of the judges we need to shift the whole High Court. It can only sound good when there is already a building ready to move in. Otherwise till the time new court is constructed anywhere we will have to wait for new recommendations.

A High Court, which can afford space for even homeopathy clinic and sparsely used UP government office right below the nose of CJ block is seriously considering the shifting of whole infrastructure for want of two more courtrooms is amusing to say the least. There are things to say for future judges and their courtrooms also but let me be confined to the present problems for now. May be we are confusing space mismanagement with lack of space.

Even presuming that Uttarakhand is a super-rich state (which actually it is not) such mammoth exercise may also have to pass through the test of ‘reasonable expenditure of public money’ which the Hon’ble High Court has set for all the public institutions of the state.

Lastly, such shifting to any place below the hills will strike adversely to the raison d'être of the creation of the state, which is the development of the hills and peculiar jurisprudence developed by the High Court of Uttarakhand sending public servants towards hills to serve its people.

Kartikey