CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 33 of 120

Correct — D, Guwahati High Court has no Bench. The court, whose principal seat is at Guwahati, has three permanent Benches — Kohima for Nagaland, set up on 1 December 1972; Aizawl for Mizoram, from 5 July 1990; and Itanagar for Arunachal Pradesh, from 12 August 2000. That is the whole point of the institution: it is one of the few High Courts with jurisdiction over several States, so it has to sit where the litigants are. The other three statements are all sound. The Allahabad High Court has a Bench at Lucknow, created when the Chief Court of Oudh was amalgamated with it in 1948. The Madhya Pradesh High Court sits at Jabalpur with Benches at Gwalior and Indore. The Rajasthan High Court's principal seat is Jodhpur, with a Bench at Jaipur. Since only one statement can be false, the Guwahati claim is the answer.

• (a)Allahabad High Court has a Bench at Lucknow. — True, so it cannot be the answer. The Lucknow Bench dates from the amalgamation of the Oudh Chief Court with the Allahabad High Court in 1948 and hears matters from the Oudh districts.
• (b)Madhya Pradesh High Court has a Bench at Gwalior. — True. The Madhya Pradesh High Court has its principal seat at Jabalpur and permanent Benches at Gwalior and Indore, a legacy of the princely and provincial courts that were merged when the State was formed.
• (c)Rajasthan High Court is located at Jodhpur. — True. The Rajasthan High Court's principal seat is at Jodhpur, with a Bench at Jaipur — a division that has been the subject of long-running argument in the State but is the settled position.

Article 214 says there shall be a High Court for each State, but Article 231 lets Parliament establish a common High Court for two or more States, and the Constitution also allows a High Court to sit at more than one place. The Gauhati High Court is the clearest example of both devices working together — a single court for several north-eastern States, sitting through permanent Benches spread across them.

Negative statements items are won by finding the one claim that is affirmatively false rather than by hunting for the three that feel right. Here the shortcut is institutional history: the north-eastern States were carved out of Assam and out of the North-East Frontier Agency in stages, and rather than build a High Court for each, Parliament kept them under Gauhati and gave each a Bench. The court is spelt Gauhati even though the city has been Guwahati since 1983, which is why the printed option looks slightly off. Anchored to the 2021 exam, its jurisdiction covered Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh; that has been the position since 23 March 2013, when separate High Courts began functioning for Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura.

• The Gauhati High Court, principal seat Guwahati, has permanent Benches at Kohima (1972), Aizawl (1990) and Itanagar (2000).
• Its jurisdiction now runs over Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.
• Separate High Courts for Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura began functioning on 23 March 2013, reducing the Gauhati court's territory.
• Article 214 provides a High Court for each State; Article 231 lets Parliament set up a common High Court for two or more States.
• The Allahabad High Court's Lucknow Bench dates from 1948; Madhya Pradesh sits at Jabalpur with Benches at Gwalior and Indore; Rajasthan sits at Jodhpur with a Bench at Jaipur.

• Assuming a High Court sits only at the city it is named after — several have permanent Benches elsewhere.
• Confusing a Bench with a separate High Court; Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura moved from Bench status to their own courts only in 2013.
• Treating the spelling Gauhati as an error — it is the court's statutory name, unchanged when the city's spelling was revised.

Usually as a spot-the-wrong-statement item on seats and Benches, or as a count of High Courts with multi-State jurisdiction.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article of the Constitution of India may Parliament establish a common High Court for two or more States?

  • (a)Article 214
  • (b)Article 217
  • (c)Article 226
  • (d)Article 231

  Answer(d) Article 231 — Article 214 provides for a High Court for each State, and Article 231 is the exception that allows one court to serve several.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The permanent Bench of the Gauhati High Court at Aizawl serves which State?

  • (a)Nagaland
  • (b)Mizoram
  • (c)Manipur
  • (d)Arunachal Pradesh

  Answer(b) Mizoram — the Aizawl Bench was set up in 1990; Kohima serves Nagaland and Itanagar serves Arunachal Pradesh.