Ladakh High Court Bench Decision Reignites Decades-Old Demand for Western Uttar Pradesh Bench: An Access-to-Justice Analysis
The Constitutional Significance of Geographical Access to Justice
When the Union Cabinet approved the sitting of a Bench of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh within Ladakh, it did more than resolve a regional administrative question — it articulated a principle of profound constitutional importance. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while acknowledging this decision on 20 August 2026, underscored that the measure was intended to bring High Court-level judicial services closer to citizens residing in geographically remote and underserved parts of Ladakh.
This development merits recognition on its own terms. However, it simultaneously reopens a question that has remained unaddressed for several decades: whether the persistent and well-documented demand for a Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Western Uttar Pradesh should now receive a structured, objective and data-driven re-examination. The Ladakh decision does not create a mechanical precedent, but the underlying principle — that physical remoteness from a constitutional court constitutes a genuine barrier to justice — applies with equal force to other regions where litigants face comparable difficulties.
The Western Uttar Pradesh Bench Demand: A Decades-Long Unresolved Question
The demand for a High Court Bench in Western Uttar Pradesh is neither a recent political slogan nor a passing campaign. It has endured across multiple decades, has been raised by lawyers, legislators, civil society representatives and other stakeholders repeatedly, and is grounded in genuine concerns about the practical accessibility of the Allahabad High Court for litigants residing in the western districts of the State.
The historical backbone of this demand is the Justice Jaswant Singh Commission, constituted by the Central Government to examine proposals relating to High Court Benches across the country. The Commission, headed by a former Supreme Court Judge, specifically recommended the establishment of a permanent Bench in Western Uttar Pradesh at Agra, along with Circuit Bench recommendations for the hill regions that then formed part of an undivided Uttar Pradesh.
The subsequent bifurcation of the State and the creation of Uttarakhand addressed the hill region question through the establishment of a separate High Court. However, Western Uttar Pradesh has continued without a High Court Bench, leaving the Commission's recommendation for a permanent Bench at Agra unimplemented for decades.
The prolonged nature of this demand, spanning political administrations of different persuasions and surviving improvements in road, rail and digital infrastructure, is itself an indicator that the underlying access-to-justice concern has not been resolved by incremental developments alone.
Geographic and Demographic Scale of Western Uttar Pradesh
A foundational argument in support of a Western Uttar Pradesh Bench is the sheer territorial and demographic magnitude of the region that would be served by it. For reference, Uttar Pradesh is broadly divided into the following regional groupings:
Regional Division of Uttar Pradesh
**Western Division (Paschimanchal — 30 districts)😗*
Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Rampur, Budaun, Mathura, Etah, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Firozabad, Agra, Mainpuri, Baghpat, Meerut, Amroha, Moradabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Hathras, Aligarh, Kannauj, Farrukhabad, Auraiya, Etawah, Kasganj, Hapur, Sambhal and Shamli.
**Central Division (Madhyanchal — 10 districts)😗*
Lakhimpur Kheri, Hardoi, Sitapur, Barabanki, Lucknow, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur Nagar and Fatehpur.
Bundelkhand Division — 7 districts:
Mahoba, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, Banda, Jalaun, Jhansi and Lalitpur.
**Eastern Division (Purvanchal — 28 districts)😗*
Ambedkar Nagar, Ayodhya, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Mau, Azamgarh, Ballia, Bhadohi, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Sonbhadra, Mirzapur, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Balrampur, Gonda, Chandauli, Shravasti, Bahraich, Sant Kabir Nagar, Sultanpur, Ghazipur, Pratapgarh and Amethi.
(Source: Sam Samayik Ghatna Chakra, Uttar Pradesh At A Glance 2026, page 81)
The Western Division alone encompasses 30 districts, representing a substantial proportion of Uttar Pradesh's total area and population. Litigants from several of these districts — particularly those in the northern and western extremities — must undertake considerable travel to reach Prayagraj for proceedings before the Allahabad High Court.
Important Note: Population and number of districts are relevant indicators, but they cannot be the sole basis for evaluating a Bench proposal. Distance, travel time, cost to litigants, case generation, litigation patterns and judicial infrastructure must all be weighed together.
Allahabad High Court's Pendency: An Institutional Reality
The case for addressing access to justice in Western Uttar Pradesh acquires additional urgency in light of the Allahabad High Court's staggering pendency figures. Based on National Judicial Data Grid data as on 16 July 2026, the Allahabad High Court reportedly carried approximately 1.22 million pending cases. Within this figure, the age-wise distribution of pendency is particularly sobering:
- Approximately 53,787 cases pending for more than 30 years
- Approximately 1.61 lakh cases pending for more than 20 years
- Approximately 4.88 lakh cases pending for more than 10 years
- Approximately 7.30 lakh cases pending for more than five years
These numbers reflect an institutional burden of extraordinary proportions. It is important, however, to distinguish between two related but distinct problems:
- Pendency — the volume of unresolved cases before the High Court
- Geographical accessibility — the practical difficulty faced by litigants in reaching the High Court
The creation of a new Bench cannot independently resolve pendency unless it is accompanied by a genuine enhancement in judicial strength. A mere redistribution of existing judges between Prayagraj, Lucknow and a new western location would provide geographical convenience to some litigants without improving overall disposal capacity. Both problems must therefore be addressed through coordinated institutional action rather than treating one as a substitute for the other.
Allahabad High Court's Own Observations on Judicial Burden
In Radhey Shyam Yadav v. Sri Ashok Nath Tiwari, District Inspector of Schools, Contempt Application (Civil) No. 6468 of 2022, decided on 19 May 2026, the Allahabad High Court itself drew attention to the exceptionally heavy daily listing before individual judges of the Court, noting that hundreds of matters may be placed before a single judge on any given day.