- (1.) The sesquicentennial celebrations of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad were inaugurated on 13 March 2016. The new building of the High Court at Lucknow was inaugurated on 19 March 2016. A programme was organized at Lucknow to mark the sesquicentennial celebrations, on 14 April 2016. The programme at Lucknow received the wholehearted cooperation of the members of the Bar and Oudh Bar Association. The programme was organized after taking into confidence the learned President, General Secretary and the members of the Managing Committee of Oudh Bar Association. It has received uniformly their unstinted support and cooperation. Indeed, both the Bench and the Bar are the two pillars upon which the administration of justice stands.
(2.) In this background, soon after the inauguration of the sesquicentennial celebrations of the High Court at Allahabad on 13 March 2016, a writ petition(Misc Bench No 4736 of 2016) was filed by Shri Asok Pande, a practising Advocate (who is also the petitioner before the Court representing an organization called the Hindu Personal Law Board). The petition was presented as a public interest litigation for seeking a direction to the Union of India and the Allahabad High Court not to hold the sesquicentennial celebrations primarily on the ground that the completion of 150 years was founded on an erroneous assumption and even otherwise, amounted to celebrating "the subservient legacy of the British Rule" as the petitioner described it in those proceedings.
(3.) A Division Bench of this Court considered the writ petition and by a judgment dated 10 March 2016 came to the conclusion that it was lacking in substance. In the concluding observations, the Division Bench exhorted earnestly all members of the legal fraternity to make the forthcoming event a memorable success: "The petition having failed to stand the scrutiny of law in the extraordinary jurisdiction of Article 226 of the Constitution of India, is hereby rejected with an earnest request to all members of the legal fraternity, particularly those who have nurtured the High Court with their toil and blood including the petitioner, to make the forthcoming events of celebrations a memorable success notwithstanding their diverse opinions.";