West UP bench issue: HC delegation meets Sibal, CJI

A delegation of lawyers of the Allahabad High Court, opposed to the creation of a separate bench in western Uttar Pradesh, today claimed to have met the Union Law Minister and the Chief Justice of India and received an assurance that their grievances will be taken care of.
Advocates of the Allahabad High Court have boycotted work since Tuesday in protest against the demand to set up a new bench in western Uttar Pradesh.
The delegation, led by president of the High Court Bar Association (HCBA) president Kandarp Narayan Mishra and other office-bearers, was in Delhi today where it met Law Minister Kapil Sibal and Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam.

"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", Mishra told PTI over phone from Delhi.
"We are going to convey the message to our fellow advocates at a general body meeting of the Bar Association tomorrow. 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.
Legal practitioners here 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.