The Bombay High Court will expand its judicial presence with the inauguration of its Kolhapur Bench on August 18, following a notification issued by Chief Justice Alok Aradhe with the approval of the Governor of Maharashtra.
The notification, issued under sub-section (3) of Section 51 of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, designates Kolhapur as an additional venue for sittings of Judges and Division Courts of the High Court. The number of judges to be posted at the Bench will be confirmed by August 4, and the inauguration is expected to be led by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai.
At present, the Bombay High Court functions from its principal seat in Mumbai, with benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad, and Goa. The Kolhapur Bench will be the fourth, with jurisdiction likely to extend over the districts of Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg.
The decision follows over two decades of sustained demands from the Bar and litigants in western Maharashtra and the southern Konkan region, aimed at reducing the need to travel to Mumbai for High Court matters.
Welcoming the development, Advocate Uday Warunjikar, member of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, described the Kolhapur Bench as “a bench for western Maharashtra and southern Konkan” that will “help all litigants to enforce their right to speedy justice.” He noted that while the Nagpur Bench has long been operational and the Aurangabad Bench was set up in 1982, the establishment of the Kolhapur Bench marks another step towards decentralising the High Court’s functioning.
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