Allahabad High Court Lucknow Bench — Jurisdiction, Districts, and How It Differs from the Principal Seat

This article is for educational and legal awareness purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice or solicitation. Please consult a qualified advocate for advice on specific legal matters.

Overview

The High Court of Judicature at Allahabad sits at two places: the principal seat at Prayagraj (Allahabad) and a permanent bench at Lucknow. Both are the same High Court — there is no separate “Lucknow High Court” — but which of the two seats hears a given case depends on where the cause of action arose. Litigants unfamiliar with Uttar Pradesh’s court structure sometimes file at the wrong seat, and while the defect is curable, it costs time. The division of work between the two seats rests on a 1948 constitutional instrument, an administrative determination by the Chief Justice, and a 1975 Supreme Court decision that settled how the two interact.

The Amalgamation of 1948 and Clause 14

Before independence, Awadh (also spelled Oudh) had its own judicial hierarchy, culminating in the Chief Court of Oudh at Lucknow, which had jurisdiction over the 12 districts of Avadh. On 25 February 1948, the Chief Court of Oudh was amalgamated with the Allahabad High Court by the United Provinces High Courts (Amalgamation) Order, 1948, an order made under the Government of India Act, 1935. The amalgamation created a single High Court for the United Provinces (later Uttar Pradesh), but it preserved a permanent bench at Lucknow for cases from the former Oudh territory.

The operative provision is Clause 14 of the 1948 Order, which reads:

“The new High Court, and the Judges and Division Courts thereof, shall sit at Allahabad or at such other places in the United Provinces as the Chief Justice may, with the approval of the Governor of the United Provinces, appoint: Provided that unless the Governor of the United Provinces with the concurrence of the Chief Justice otherwise directs, such Judges of the new High Court, not less than two in number, as the Chief Justice may from time to time nominate, shall sit at Lucknow in order to exercise in respect of cases arising in such areas in Oudh as the Chief Justice may direct, the jurisdiction and power for the time being vested in the new High Court: Provided further that the Chief Justice may in his discretion order that any case or class of cases arising in the said areas shall be heard at Allahabad.”

Three things follow from the text. First, Allahabad is not fixed as a permanent, exclusive seat — the clause uses “or,” not “and,” when describing where the Court may sit. Second, at least two judges must sit at Lucknow to exercise jurisdiction over “such areas in Oudh as the Chief Justice may direct” — meaning the specific district-wise scope of Lucknow’s jurisdiction is fixed by an administrative determination of the Chief Justice, not spelled out district-by-district in the Order itself. Third, the Chief Justice retains a discretionary power to order that a particular case, or class of cases, arising in the Oudh areas be heard at Allahabad instead.

Which Districts Fall Under the Lucknow Bench

Clause 14 does not itself name the districts — it leaves that to the Chief Justice’s administrative direction, “such areas in Oudh as the Chief Justice may direct.” According to the Allahabad High Court’s own official-website account of the Lucknow Bench’s history, the Chief Court of Oudh — and, after 1948, the Lucknow Bench — was originally understood to carry exclusive jurisdiction over the 12 districts of Avadh. The verified core list of these districts, cross-checked against an independent legal database, is:

Lucknow
Faizabad (renamed Ayodhya district in 2018)
Sultanpur
Raebareli
Pratapgarh
Barabanki
Gonda
Bahraich
Sitapur
Lakhimpur Kheri
Hardoi
Unnao

Uttar Pradesh has since created several new districts by carving them out of these original twelve — for example, Amethi (formed 1 July 2010, out of tehsils from Sultanpur and Raebareli) and Ambedkar Nagar (formed 29 September 1995, out of Faizabad). News reporting on periodic disputes over the Bench’s jurisdiction commonly cites a present-day figure of around 16 of Uttar Pradesh’s 75 districts as falling under Lucknow Bench jurisdiction — the twelve original Avadh districts plus newer districts carved from them (Amethi, Ambedkar Nagar, and others such as Shravasti and Balrampur, which were carved from Bahraich and Gonda respectively). This wider figure could not be independently confirmed against a single authoritative, fetchable current list at the time of writing, so it is noted here as commonly reported rather than independently verified. The 12-district core above, however, is verified against the High Court’s own published history and a second independent source.

A litigant or lawyer with a live matter should confirm the correct seat for a specific district through the High Court’s own cause-list and roster information, or through an advocate practising at the relevant bench, rather than relying on any single secondary list — including this one.

Nasiruddin v. State Transport Appellate Tribunal — The Supreme Court Settles the Division of Work

Because Clause 14 leaves the district-wise scope of Lucknow’s jurisdiction to administrative determination, disputes recurred over the years about which cases “belonged” at Lucknow and which at Allahabad, including attempts to transfer categories of Oudh-area cases (such as company and taxation matters) away from the Lucknow Bench, and administrative transfers of pending Lucknow cases to Allahabad. These disputes were first addressed by a five-judge Full Bench of the High Court in Nirmal Das v. State Transport (Appellate) Tribunal, AIR 1972 All 200, which held that cases falling within Lucknow’s jurisdiction were to be entertained at the Lucknow Bench.

The question reached the Supreme Court in Nasiruddin v. State Transport Appellate Tribunal, AIR 1976 SC 331 / (1975) 2 SCC 671. The Court’s key holdings, central to how the two seats function to this day, were:

No fixed, exclusive seat at Allahabad. Clause 14’s language (“shall sit at Allahabad or at such other places”) does not make Allahabad a permanently fixed seat with Lucknow as a mere satellite; the High Court is one court sitting at two places.
The Chief Justice’s determination of Oudh areas is final and cannot be arbitrarily altered. Once the Chief Justice has, by administrative order, specified which areas of Oudh fall within Lucknow’s jurisdiction, that determination should hold good — the Court emphasised certainty in this allocation of jurisdiction, so that litigants and lawyers know in advance where a matter will be heard.
The “cause of action” test. A case is treated as “arising in” the specified Oudh areas — and therefore properly filed at Lucknow — where the cause of action arises wholly or in part within those areas. Where the cause of action arises wholly within the specified areas, the Lucknow Bench has exclusive jurisdiction. Where it arises partly within and partly outside those areas, the litigant has a choice of forum between the two seats.

Nasiruddin remains the leading authority cited whenever a dispute arises over whether a matter belongs at Lucknow or Allahabad, and it is the reason the “cause of action” — not merely the residence of a party or the location of counsel — governs where a case involving an Oudh-area district is properly filed.

Filing at the Wrong Seat

Filing at the wrong seat is not fatal to a case, but it does cause delay. Where a matter is presented at a seat that lacks jurisdiction over it under the Chief Justice’s Clause 14 determination and the Nasiruddin cause-of-action test, the Registry ordinarily raises an office objection at the scrutiny stage. The matter is then returned for representation at the correct seat or transferred administratively once the objection is pointed out. Identifying the correct seat before filing, rather than after an objection, saves that round trip. For a case involving facts spread across more than one district, or a district that is not one of the well-established Oudh districts, it is worth confirming the point with the Registry or with counsel before drafting.

Practical Filing Pointers

Identify where the cause of action arose, not merely where a party resides. Under Nasiruddin, this is the operative test for whether a matter belongs at Lucknow.
Check whether the case falls wholly or partly within the Oudh districts. A wholly Oudh-area cause of action means exclusive Lucknow jurisdiction; a mixed cause of action gives a choice of forum.
For newer, carved-out districts (such as Amethi or Ambedkar Nagar) whose jurisdictional treatment is less commonly discussed than that of the original 12 Avadh districts, confirm the position with the High Court Registry rather than assuming it based on the parent district’s status.
Writ, appellate, and revisional matters each have their own procedural rules under the Allahabad High Court Rules in addition to the seat question; the seat determination under Clause 14 governs where a matter is heard, not the procedural rules applicable to what kind of matter it is.
The Avadh Bar Association (Lucknow) and the Allahabad High Court Bar Association are the respective bar bodies at the two seats; the author of this article, Advocate Akhil Singh, practises at the Lucknow Bench.

Takeaway

The Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow Bench is not a separate court but a permanent bench of the same High Court, created by Clause 14 of the United Provinces High Courts (Amalgamation) Order, 1948, to hear cases arising in the districts of the former Oudh region. The Order itself does not enumerate those districts — it leaves that to the Chief Justice’s administrative determination — but the verified core is the 12 original Avadh districts (Lucknow, Faizabad/Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Raebareli, Pratapgarh, Barabanki, Gonda, Bahraich, Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Hardoi, and Unnao), with several newer districts carved from them also commonly reported as falling within Lucknow’s jurisdiction. The Supreme Court’s decision in Nasiruddin v. State Transport Appellate Tribunal settled that this jurisdictional allocation, once fixed, is final, and that the “cause of action” — not a party’s residence — determines the correct seat for filing.

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