Allahabad High Court

Allahabad High Court, officially known as High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, is the high court based in the city of Prayagraj, formerly known as Allahabad, that has jurisdiction over the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was established on 17 March 1866, making it one of the oldest high courts to be established in India.

Allahabad High Court
High Court building in Allahabad
25°27′11″N 81°49′14″E
Established	17 March 1866 (in Agra) 1869 (in Allahabad)
Jurisdiction	Uttar Pradesh
Location	Principal Seat: Prayagraj Permanent Bench: Lucknow
Coordinates	25°27′11″N 81°49′14″E
Composition method	Presidential with confirmation of Chief Justice of India and Governor of respective state.
Authorised by	Constitution of India
Judge term length	mandatory retirement by age of 62
Number of positions	160 (permanent 76; additional 84)
Website	allahabadhighcourt.in
Chief Justice
Currently	Arun Bhansali
Since	5 February 2024

Inner block of Allahabad High Court

High court Seats

Location	Type	Status
Prayagraj	Principal Seat	Active
Lucknow	Bench	Active

History

Allahabad became the seat of Government of North-Western Provinces and a High Court was established in 1834 but was shifted to Agra within a year.^[1] In 1875 it shifted back to Allahabad.^[2][3] The former High Court was located at the Accountant General's office at the University of Allahabad complex.^[3]

It was founded as the High Court of Judicature for the North-Western Provinces at Agra on 17 March 1866 by the Indian High Courts Act 1861 replacing the old Sadr Diwani Adalat. Sir Walter Morgan, Barrister-at-Law and Mr. Simpson were appointed the first Chief Justice and the first Registrar respectively of the High Court of North-Western Provinces.

The location of the High Court for the North-Western Provinces was moved from Agra to Allahabad in 1875 and the name was correspondingly changed to the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad from 11 March 1919.

On 2 November 1925, the Oudh Judicial Commissioner's Court was replaced by the Oudh Chief Court at Lucknow by the Oudh Civil Courts Act of 1925, enacted by the United Provinces Legislature with the previous sanction of the Governor General and the passing of this Act.

On 25 February 1948, the Chief Court of Oudh was amalgamated with the High Court of Allahabad.

Until 2000, what is now called Uttarakhand was part of Uttar Pradesh, and was therefore subject to the jurisdiction of Allahabad High Court. When the new state was created, Allahabad High Court ceased to have jurisdiction over the districts in it.

Building of the circuit bench of Allahabad High Court in Lucknow.

Principal seat and benches

The seat of the court is at Prayagraj. Allahabad High Court maintains a permanent circuit bench at Lucknow, the administrative capital of the state. The maximum number of serving judges is 160, the highest in India.

Chief Justices

Official residence of the Chief Justice

Justice Arun Bhansali is the current Chief Justice of the High Court.

List of chief justices

#	Chief Justice		Term start	Term end	Governor (oathed by)
	English	Hindi
1	Walter Morgan	वाल्टेर मॉर्गन	1866	1871
2	Robert Stuart	रॉबर्ट स्टुअर्ट	1871	1884
3	William Comer Petheram	विलियम कॉमर पैथराम	1884	1886
4	John Edge	जॉन एज	1886	1898
5	Louis Addin Kershaw	लुइस एडिन केर्शौ	1898
6	Arthur Strachey	आर्थर स्ट्राचे	1898	1901
7	John Stanley	जॉन स्टानले	1901	1911
8	Henry George Richards	हेनरी जॉर्ज रिचर्ड्स	1911	1919
9	Edward Grimwood Mears	एडवर्ड ग्रिमवुड मेयर्स	1919	1932
10	Shah Muhammad Sulaiman	शाह मुहम्मद सुलेमान	1932	1937
11	John Gibb Thom	जॉन गिब थॉम	1937	1941
12	Iqbal Ahmad	इक़बाल अहमद	1941	1946
13	Kamala Kanta Verma	कमल कांत वर्मा	1946	1947
After Independence
14	Bidhu Bhushan Malik	बिधु भूषण मलिक	1947	1955	Sarojini Naidu
15	O.H. Mootham	ओ. एच. मूथाम	1955	1961	Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi
16	Manulal Chunilal Desai	मनुलाल चुन्नीलाल देसाई	1961	1966	Burgula Ramakrishna Rao
17	Vashishtha Bhargava	वशिष्ठ भार्गव	25 February 1966	7 August 1966	Bishwanath Das
18	Nasirullah Beg	नसरुल्लाह बेग	1966	1967
19	Vidyadhar Govind Oak	विद्याधर गोविन्द ओक	1967	1971	Bezawada Gopala Reddy
20	Shashi Kanta Verma	शशि कांत वर्मा	1971	1973
21	Dhatri Saran Mathur	धातृ शरण माथुर	1973	1974	Akbar Ali Khan
22	Kunwar Bahadur Asthana	कुंवर बहादुर अस्थाना	1974	1977	Marri Chenna Reddy
23	D. M. Chandrashekhar	डी. एम्. चंद्रशेखर	1977	1978	Ganpatrao Devji Tapase
24	Satish Chandra	सतीश चंद्र	1978	1983
25	Mahesh Narain Shukla	महेश नारायण शुक्ल	1983	1985	Chandeshwar Prasad Narayan Singh
26	Hriday Nath Seth	ह्रदय नाथ सेठ	1986		Mohammed Usman Arif
27	Kalmanje Jagannatha Shetty	कलमञ्जे जगन्नाथ शेट्टी	1986	1987
28	Dwarka Nath Jha	द्वारका नाथ झा	1987
29	Amitav Banerji	अमिताव बनर्जी	1987	1988
30	Brahma Nath Katju	ब्रह्म नाथ काटजू	1988	1989
31	B. P. Jeevan Reddy	बी. पी. जीवन रेड्डी	1990	1991	B. Satya Narayan Reddy
32	Manoj Kumar Mukherjee	मनोज कुमार मुख़र्जी	1991	1993
33	S. S. Sodhi	एस. एस. लोधी	1994	1995	Motilal Vora
34	A. Lakshman Rao	ए. लक्ष्मण राव	1995	1996
35	D. P. Mohapatra	डी. पी. महापात्र	1996	1998
36	N. K. Mitra	एन. के. मित्रा	1999	2000	Suraj Bhan
37	Shyamal Kumar Sen	श्यामल कुमार सेन	8 May 2000	24 November 2002
38	Tarun Chatterjee	तरुण चटर्जी	31 January 2003	26 August 2004	Vishnu Kant Shastri
39	Ajoy Nath Ray	अजय नाथ रे	11 January 2005	26 January 2007	T. V. Rajeswar
40	Hemant Laxman Gokhale	हेमंत लक्ष्मण गोखले	7 March 2007	8 March 2009
41	Chandramauli Kumar Prasad	चंद्रमौली कुमार प्रसाद	20 March 2009	7 February 2010
42	Ferdino Rebello	फ़र्डिनो रेबेल्लो	26 June 2010	30 July 2011	Banwari Lal Joshi
43	Syed Rafat Alam	सय्यद रफात आलम	4 August 2011	8 August 2012
44	Shiva Kirti Singh	शिवा कीर्ति सिंह	17 October 2012	18 September 2013
45	Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud	धनञ्जय यशवंत चंद्रचूड़	31 October 2013	12 May 2016
46	Dilip Babasaheb Bhosale[4]	दिलीप बाबासाहेब भोसले	30 July 2016	23 October 2018	Ram Naik
47	Govind Mathur	गोविन्द माथुर	14 November 2018	13 April 2021
48	Sanjay Yadav	संजय यादव	14 April 2021	26 June 2021	Anandiben Patel
49	Rajesh Bindal	राजेश बिंदल	11 October 2021	12 February 2023
50	Pritinker Diwaker	प्रीतिंकर दिवाकर	26 March 2023	21 November 2023
51	Arun Bhansali	अरुण भंसाली	5 February 2024	Incumbent

Agra High Court Bench Demand

Residents of Western Uttar Pradesh have also been long demanding a high court bench in Agra. Almost 54% of all cases reaching the High Court originate from the 22 districts of Western UP, still, western Uttar Pradesh does not have a High Court bench.^[5] Eight other High Courts are closer to litigants of West Uttar Pradesh than their own High Court in Prayagraj; these High Courts are:

• High Court at Delhi
• High Court at Shimla
• High Court at Chandigarh
• High Court at Nainital
• High Court at Jammu
• High Court Jaipur
• High Court Gwalior

Even Lahore High Court is closer to western Uttar Pradesh than Allahabad High Court.^[6][7]

Highest Number of Pending Cases

Uttar Pradesh has at least 9 times more pending cases than any other state.

Allahabad High Court as of 2022, has 9.33 lakh cases pending in the fast-track courts of Uttar Pradesh, followed by over 1.04 lakh cases in Maharashtra, 1.02 lakh cases in Tamil Nadu, 71,260 cases in West Bengal and 12,538 cases in Telangana.

A bench at Agra is needed as a lot of corporate and capital investments in Noida, have gone to other states due to more readily accessibility of justice in corporate affairs.

The decision by Foxconn and Winston to choose Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as their manufacturing hub has been attributed by experts for this very same reason.

If Uttar Pradesh wants to attract investments then it is recommended by the NCR planning committee to work on setting up a High Court bench in Agra with utmost priority. ^[8]

Chief Justice and judges

The court has a Sanctioned strength of 160 (Permanent:120, Additional:40) judges.

Judges elevated to the Supreme Court of India-

Sr. no	Name of the judge, justice	Date of elevation	Date of retirement	Parent High Court
1	Vineet Saran	7 August 2018	10 May 2022	Allahabad
2	Krishna Murari	23 September 2019	8 July 2023	Allahabad
3	Vikram Nath	31 August 2021	23 September 2027	Allahabad
4	Pankaj Mithal	7 July 2006	16 June 2026	Allahabad

Sitting Judges of Allahabad High Court-

See also: List of sitting judges of High Courts of India § Allahabad High Court

Reporting and citation

Journals that report Allahabad High Court Judgements include

1. Allahabad Criminal Cases,
2. Allahabad Law Journal
3. Allahabad Law Reports
4. Allahabad Daily Judgement
5. Allahabad Civil Journal
6. Allahabad Weekly Cases
7. Allahabad Rent Cases
8. Accidents Claims Journal
9. Allahabad Criminal Rulings
10. Criminal Law Journal
11. Motor Accident Claims
12. Revenue Decisions
13. U.P. Local Bodies and Education Cases
14. Lucknow Civil Decisions (LCD)
15. All India Judicial Interpretation on Crimes

High Court Service

The Registry at High Court of Judicature at Allahabad is broadly divided into five Cadres:

• General office Cadre (Registrar Cadre)

An officer enters this cadre in the rank of Review Officer/Asst. Review Officer/Computer Assistant after passing a competitive exam and rises up through successive promotions on S.O./Asst./Deputy/Joint Registrar to reach the post of Registrar.

• Bench Secretary Cadre
• Private Secretary Cadre
• Computer Cadre
• Library Cadre

Some other cadres/posts at High Court of Judicature at Allahabad are -

• Chief Documentation Officer cum Chief Librarian (currently held by Sri. Amitabh Saran)
• Physiotherapist
• Court Manager

Commemorative postal stamps

Commemorative stamps released by India Post -

1966

2016

2016