Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay seeks Supreme Court bench in Chennai, citing Article 130 and the 2007 refusal

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Joseph Vijay says the Article 32 remedy is practically available only to those near Delhi, and cites Article 130, Law Commission reports and a pending Constitution Bench matter.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterating the need for a regional bench of the Supreme Court of India in Chennai. The letter relies on Article 130 of the Constitution, which lets the Court sit at places other than Delhi. It also refers to a matter pending before a five-judge Constitution Bench.

The demand has a long record in Parliament, the Law Commission and the Court itself. This report sets out what the letter says, and the constitutional text and authorities behind each point.

What the letter says

Vijay writes that the framers of the Constitution wanted every citizen of the country to have access to justice. In the letter's words, they contemplated that all citizens, “rich or poor must have direct access to the Court,” which was the main reason for Article 32.

He adds that the Article 32 remedy is now “practically available only to citizens who are geographically close to the Supreme Court of India and who are financially privileged to meet the cost of litigation and travel.” Citizens in South India, he says, are deprived of it because of the distance between the Southern States and New Delhi.

Vijay points out that under Article 130 the Supreme Court sits in Delhi, or at such other place or places as the Chief Justice of India may decide with the approval of the President. A bench in Chennai, he says, would benefit all the southern States, since a litigant from the south would not have to travel to New Delhi.

He states that a Chennai bench would reflect the true federal character of the nation. He says it would not affect the independence of the judiciary, because control over the bench would remain with the Chief Justice of India.

The letter describes the Madras High Court as one of the oldest chartered High Courts in India, with a professional and competent bar that could meet the needs of such a bench. Vijay adds that the State had assured the necessary infrastructure, including residential accommodation for the judges.

The 2007 decision and the pending reference

Despite that assurance, the letter says, the full court of the Supreme Court refused on 7 August 2007 to reconsider its earlier decision against setting up a bench. Vijay also states that the issue is pending before a Constitution Bench in V. Vasanthakumar v H.C. Bhatia and Others, having been referred to five judges.

He cites the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2004, 2006, 2008 and most recently 2021, and Law Commission reports reiterating the need for a permanent regional bench. He asks the Prime Minister to take up the issue, reconsider the earlier stand and obtain a favourable decision on a bench at Chennai.

Article 130 and the Constituent Assembly

Article 130 provides that the Supreme Court shall sit in Delhi or at such other place or places as the Chief Justice of India may appoint with the approval of the President, from time to time. The provision began as draft Article 108-A.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar moved it in the Constituent Assembly on 27 May 1949. Jaspat Roy Kapoor proposed wording to make clear that the Court could sit in Delhi and elsewhere together, and asked whether the Court could hold a circuit bench elsewhere while sitting in Delhi.

T.T. Krishnamachari answered that the clause already allowed the Court to sit at Delhi and elsewhere. He spoke of arranging sittings elsewhere to make it a peripatetic court if necessary, and opposed the amendment as making a simple clause complex.

Dr Ambedkar said a court must have a defined place so that litigants know where to go. The alternative limb was needed, he said, because the capital had not yet been settled and a change would otherwise require an amendment. A circuit court, he told Kapoor, is only a bench, and the Assembly adopted the article.

An enabling provision, not a duty

Article 130 is enabling, not mandatory. In Union of India v S.P. Anand (1998), as the constitutional commentaries record, the Supreme Court held that it casts no duty on the Chief Justice of India to appoint another place, and that no court can direct the Chief Justice or the President to do so.

M. Laxmikanth, Indian Polity, states the same position in its chapter on the Supreme Court. The Constitution names Delhi as the seat, and the choice of another place is optional.

The President acts on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister under Article 74. The Chief Justice's decision to appoint another place therefore needs the approval of a President so advised.

Law Commission and the cassation proposal

Raeesa Vakil, in her chapter on jurisdiction in The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, records two Law Commission proposals. Report No. 95 of 1984 proposed a constitutional division within the Supreme Court.

Report No. 229 of 2009 proposed a Constitution Bench at Delhi and cassation benches in four regions: Delhi, Chennai or Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. Vakil places such proposals among responses to the Court's rising burden that have focused on institutional restructuring, alongside a recommendation to increase the number of judges.

A cassation division changes how the Court is organised and what each part hears. A bench sitting at another place under Article 130 changes only where the Court sits.

The Court's own reservations

Nick Robinson, writing on judicial architecture in the same Handbook, records longstanding demands, particularly from the south, for judges to sit in several locations. He notes that the Court disproportionately hears cases originating from Delhi and nearby States.

The judges, Robinson writes, have traditionally resisted benches outside the capital, fearing that such a practice would further weaken the Court's sense of institutional integrity. High Courts do sit at more than one place: the Bombay High Court has its principal seat at Bombay and permanent benches at Goa, Nagpur and Aurangabad.

The single, unified judiciary was itself a design choice. Vakil recalls that Dr Ambedkar defended it as the means of securing uniformity in matters essential to the unity of the country.

Article 32, Article 226 and access

Dr Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly on 9 December 1948 that, if asked to name the single most important article of the Constitution, he would name the article on the right to constitutional remedies. That article became Article 32.

Article 32 lets a person move the Supreme Court directly to enforce fundamental rights. Article 226 gives each High Court, the Madras High Court included, power to issue writs for the same purpose and for any other purpose.

According to the letter, the question of a Supreme Court bench in the south remains pending before a five-judge Constitution Bench in V. Vasanthakumar v H.C. Bhatia and Others.