West UP bench: HC panel meets Sibal,CJI

A delegation of lawyers of the Allahabad High Court,opposed to the creation of a separate bench in western Uttar Pradesh,Sunday claimed to have met the met Law Minister Kapil Sibal and Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam and received an assurance that their grievances will be taken care of.

“Both,the Law Minister as well as the CJI,gave us an assurance that at present there was no move to carve out a separate Bench of the High Court. They also told us that though they had been receiving requests from advocates of western Uttar Pradesh to the effect,they have made no promise in this regard”,High Court Bar Association (HCBA) president Kandarp Narayan Mishra,who led the delegation,said over phone from Delhi.

“We are going to convey the message to our fellow advocates at a general body meeting of the Bar Association Monday. If they all agree,the ongoing strike may be called off and judicial work may resume,” he added.

The HCBA had initially given a call for boycotting judicial work only on August 13 but later the stir went on getting extended citing “tremendous resentment among lawyers over the attempts to truncate the High Court”.

At present,the High Court has just one additional Bench in Lucknow,which has about a dozen districts of UP under its jurisdiction. Lawyers fear that creation of a separate bench for western UP,for which there has been a long-standing demand,could deprive them of a sizeable clientele.