Bar associations across Rajkot, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Porbandar, Bhavnagar, Amreli, Surendranagar and Kutch boycotted court work in late July, reviving a demand that has simmered for decades: a permanent bench of the Gujarat High Court in Rajkot. Organised under the Rajkot Bar Association, advocates abandoned court halls and held demonstrations at the judicial complex, according to Gujarat Samachar. Gujarati-language coverage from Nobat confirms the same core facts: a meeting of bar leaders in Rajkot was followed by a symbolic strike across Saurashtra and Kutch, spanning districts including Morbi, Devbhumi Dwarka, Gir Somnath and Botad.
Why Rajkot, why now
The push isn’t new. Rajkot briefly hosted a circuit bench of the Bombay High Court after independence, an arrangement that lapsed when Gujarat state was formed in 1960 and judicial functions consolidated entirely in Ahmedabad. Since then, litigants across the 11 districts of Saurashtra and Kutch have had to travel to Ahmedabad for hearings. For residents of Devbhumi Dwarka, Porbandar or Kutch, that trip can run 250 to 350 kilometres each way. Advocates say this imposes a real cost on farmers, wage workers and small traders who often cannot afford to lose a day’s income for a routine hearing, let alone a multi-day trip.
What has changed is the scale of the argument. About 40% of the pending caseload before the Gujarat High Court reportedly originates from the Saurashtra region, according to figures cited in recent reporting. Advocates use that number to argue a Rajkot bench would ease Ahmedabad’s backlog as much as it would ease travel for litigants. A 27-member steering committee now coordinates the campaign.
What it means for Gujarat residents
For ordinary litigants in Saurashtra-Kutch, the practical stakes are straightforward: shorter travel, lower legal costs and, advocates argue, faster access to justice for cases that currently queue behind Ahmedabad’s caseload. The demand also isn’t unique to Gujarat. Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka already operate decentralised High Court benches outside their principal seats, a comparison lawyers here invoke often. Establishing a bench, however, is not a matter the Rajkot Bar Association can decide on its own. It would require concurrence from both the state government and the Gujarat High Court’s administration before any proposal reaches the central government for approval. That multi-step process has stalled similar demands elsewhere in the country for years.
Outlook
Advocates say their immediate goal is to pressure the High Court administration and state government into forming a joint review committee to examine the proposal. That would be a first procedural step, not a decision. Neither the Gujarat High Court nor the state government had issued an official response as of the boycott. Given the demand’s decades-long history, residents of Saurashtra and Kutch should expect this to be a sustained campaign rather than one resolved quickly, with further bar association actions likely if the state does not engage.
Sources: Gujarat Samachar, Nobat
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.