The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court seeks responses from the central government and the high court administration regarding a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that calls for renaming the Allahabad High Court as the High Court of Uttar Pradesh in all official documents.

Further, the petitioner, Deepanker Kumar, requested a clear allocation of jurisdiction between the Allahabad High Court and its Lucknow bench.

The division bench, consisting of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Om Prakash Shukla, directed to submit a counter affidavit within four weeks.

The petitioner was granted two weeks to file a rejoinder after receiving the counter affidavit. The court scheduled the matter for a hearing in six weeks.

The court did not address the issue of the petition's maintainability during the proceedings.

Also Read: Lawyer Files PIL to Rename Allahabad High Court to High Court of Uttar Pradesh

The high court order issued on September 11, 2024 reads, "Keeping the question of maintainability of petition and the objection for the reliefs claims in view of a decision of Coordinate Bench in PIL Civil No. 14171 of 2020 open for consideration on the next date and also those objections to be raised at that time, let counter affidavit be filed by the opposite parties within four weeks as in the connected petition vires of Amalgamation Order 1948 is also under challenge".

The PIL, filed by advocate Ashok Pandey, contends that while 19 out of 25 high courts in India are named after their respective states, six are named after the cities where they were originally established. The petitioner has requested that the court mandate the uniform use of "High Court of Uttar Pradesh" in all official documents. The government and high court administration informed the court that this is the second petition filed by Pandey on this matter, with the first having been dismissed in 2020.