India to have two Supreme Courts? Bill for establishment of Kolkata Bench introduced in RS

A Bill which proposes to establish a permanent Bench of the Supreme Court at Kolkata has been introduced in the Rajya Sabha. The private member Bill, titled The Supreme Court (Establishment of a Permanent Bench at Kolkata) Bill, 2015 was introduced on March 13, i.e. more than a month ago, by Vivek Gupta of the All India Trinamool Congress party..As per the Bill, the Bench, which is proposed to be set up at Kolkata, will deal with cases from thirteen States – West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chattisgarh, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura..It also provides for a minimum strength of five judges for the Bench..The Statement of Objectives and Reasons of the Bill states the following:.“Moreover, the appellants are already burdened and are further shunned to face the ordeal of having to travel thousands of kilometres to the seat of the Supreme Court in Delhi for their trial and the consequent follow up of their cases..Moreover, the rate of pending court cases in the country has crossed the 3 crore mark, West Bengal itself has 3.5 lakh appellants awaiting justice. Figures on the chronic backlog of court cases are an indictment of the country’s beleaguered legal system. The plight of persons awaiting trial needs to be understood and addressed. It is not just the wastage of time but also an increased financial burden that makes the process inconvenient, cumbersome and expensive....the Bill seeks to establish a permanent bench of the Supreme Court at Kolkata in West Bengal. Calcutta High Court is the oldest and geographically, Kolkata is a strategic location for a permanent bench as it is easily accessible for litigants of central, eastern, south-eastern and especially north-eastern States. This will provide for a robust mechanism to not only manage pendency of court cases but simultaneously makes the judicial procedure for justice apportune, public-friendly and efficient.”.As reflected in the transcripts of the Rajya Sabha debates, Gupta had sought leave to introduce the Bill on March 13 this year, and the Bill was subsequently introduced. However, the Bill has not yet been discussed by the Upper House..When contacted, Mr. Gupta’s office did say that the Bill has not come up for discussion yet, but there is a chance of the same being discussed on May 8 in the ongoing session..This is not the first time that the demand for regional benches of the Supreme Court has been raised, nor does the idea have its fair share of critics. Senior Advocate KK Venugopal, for instance, said that he was against the idea of having regional benches..“If you start with one regional bench, you can take it from me, there have to be as many regional benches as there are States in the country. That is how the misfortune of the linguistic States had started and one does not see any end to it even today.”.Read the full text of the Bill below.