A plea challenging Rule which allows Chief Justice to delegate powers to Senior Judges has been dismissed by the Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court on Monday comprising of division bench of Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Saroj Yadav, dismissed a petition challenging a provision in Allahabad High Court Rules of 1952 which allows Chief Justice to delegate his powers during his absence, to senior judges of the High Court.

“The present petition for writ said to be filed in public interest preferred to have an appropriate writ, order or direction for not giving effect to provisions contained in Chapter V Rule 9 of the Allahabad High Court Rules, 1952 prescribing appointment of Senior Judges at Allahabad and Lucknow to exercise jurisdiction at their respective places in connection with arrangement of Benches, listing of cases and like other matters and further to amend the Rules in conformity with the law laid down by Supreme Court in the case of Ashok Pande Versus Supreme Court of India (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 147 of 2018).”

In that judgment, the Supreme Court had held that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or High Court is the master of roster with exclusive right to allocate cases and constitute Bench in the court.

“Suffice to state that no challenge is given to the Rule aforesaid and nothing has been said as to how the Rule is bad. The object of the Rule is to make the High Court functional by delegating certain authorities of the Chief Justice to Senior Judge in his absence. It would also be 2 appropriate to state that the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is not supposed to legislate the Rules and is also not supposed to direct the Law Framing Authority to legislate or amend the law being a function assigned to Legislature/Law Framing Authority.”- observed the bench.

Hence, court dismissed the plea expressing, “No interference at all is warranted.”

Case title: Ashok Pande v. Allahabad High Court