The Janata Dal (United) and the BJP-led Central government sparred in the Lok Sabha on Friday over setting up High Court benches in the state. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) accused both of misleading the people of Bihar and asked the JD(U) to withdraw support to the Narendra Modi government if its demand was unmet. The JD(U) and the BJP are allies at the Centre and Bihar. During Question Hour, the JD(U)’s Banka MP Girdhari Yadav raised the issue of a lack of High Court Benches in Bihar. “Setting up of High Court Benches is under the Central list. In Bihar, which has a population of 13 crore, there is just one High Court and no Bench. In states with much lower populations, there is a High Court and two Benches. Does the Centre have any intention to set up a Bench in Bhagalpur or elsewhere in Bihar?” asked Yadav. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal replied that HC Benches were set up according to the recommendations of the 1981 Jaswant Singh Commission and the Supreme Court. “For this, a state government proposal, following the approval of the Chief Justice of the High Court and the Governor, is sent to the Centre. Following the approval, the state government provides infrastructure. There is no proposal under consideration for setting up a Bench in Bhagalpur or Purnia,” he said. Yadav protested Meghwal’s answer, saying, “When the matter is under the Central list, why should the Chief Justice or Governor be involved? In a system devoted to the welfare of the people, the Central government must make efforts to do it.” In response, Meghwal said, “The country is run according to the Constitution. There are Supreme Court orders. There is a process laid down. If the member wants a High Court Bench, he should get a proposal from the state government along with the approval of the Chief Justice and the Governor. Only then can we consider it.” Rajesh Ranjan, an Independent MP from Purnia popularly known as Pappu Yadav, joined the JD(U) MP’s cause and said, “(BJP leader and former Union minister) Ravishankar Prasad wrote a letter in this regard and there is the 125th report of the Law Commission. You (the minister) must study both. Gandhiji said justice delayed is justice denied. In your state (Rajasthan), there are three Benches; in Maharashtra, there are two Benches; in Madhya Pradesh, there are three Benches. In Uttar Pradesh, there are two Benches, whereas there should be four. In Bihar, 2.37 lakh cases are pending with the HC. There should be two benches, one in Purnia and another in Muzaffarpur.” But Meghwal reiterated that nothing could be done without a proposal from the state government. Following this, the RJD’s Misa Bharati weighed in on the issue. “We are also demanding what Girdhari Yadav and Pappu Yadav have demanded. I am not satisfied with the minister’s answer. I would like to ask the JD(U) MP to speak to his leaders, to speak to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and get a proposal sent. If they are unable to make such a proposal, they must withdraw their support to the government. Do not mislead the people of Bihar,” she said. Other MPs raised the issue of conducting court proceedings in regional languages. The BJP’s Bargarh MP Pradeep Purohit asked whether court proceedings in Odisha could be held in Odia. V Selvaraj, the CPI MP from Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam, also raised a similar demand for the Tamil language. Meghwal said proposals had been received from Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka for court proceedings in their regional languages. “These were sent to the Chief Justice of India for his approval. The CJI informed in 2012 that these proposals had been rejected. We are still trying for all orders in these courts to be translated into regional languages,” he said. Congress’s Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari said there was a logic to orders being in English as there was a need for standardisation of authoritative texts across the board. “The Supreme Court is now using an AI tool to translate orders into various regional languages. What is the integrity of that translation? Who will certify that the translation is correct because the translation is not being done by the judge who has authored the judgment? Section 7 of the Official Languages Act says that the only authoritative text would be the one translated into English and certified by the High Court,” he said. Meghwal said an advisory committee set up by the SC is regularly monitoring the translation of the court’s orders.
