Regional benches of Supreme Court: A constitutional necessity deferred by institutional anxiety

For decades, Article 130 of the Constitution has remained unused. That silence is now being questioned. In a move that could redefine how the nation accesses its highest court, a Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2026 has been introduced to operationalise a provision that has existed more on paper than in practice.

Introduced by Rajya Sabha MP P Wilson, the private member Bill goes beyond geography; it raises deeper questions about federalism, accessibility and the concentration of judicial power. The Supreme Court of India has continued to function solely from Delhi, turning constitutional flexibility into institutional rigidity. The debate has now been reignited: is resistance to regional benches rooted in principle, or merely in precedent?

The idea of establishment of regional benches is far from new. Where the Supreme Court was to be located and to whom it was to be accessible, was a question debated by the Constitution framers. They knew that the Indian geography would be create barriers to justice. The members of the Constituent Assembly expressed their concern over centralisation of the apex court in Delhi.

Members like HV Kamath warned that justice should not become “remote and inaccessible to the common man.” KT Shah questioned whether citizens in distant regions could exercise “rights that required time, cost, and effort they could not afford.” BR Ambedkar, while acknowledging the concern, institutionalised discretion as the solution.

The Assembly decided to be flexible rather than to be mandatory. Article 130 gave the Supreme Court a seat “in such other place or places as the Chief Justice of India may deem with Presidential consent”. It was not an accidental vagueness; it was a constitutional safety valve and a recognition of the problem, postponed to a later date. That postponement has now become inertia.

The strongest point in support of regional benches is access. Taking a case to the Supreme Court is prohibitively costly. Litigants in remote states have to pay the expenses of travelling, lodging and high-end legal services, effectively making constitutional remedies a preserve of the elite. However, this is not only a question of cost, but also a question of the architecture of exclusion. Constitutional discourse is decided by a centralised court. It favours some geographies, some Bar networks and some social classes. It establishes a hierarchy of access, something never authorised by the Constitution.

On the opposing side, the Supreme Court has often complained that regional courts would divide its power, produce inconsistent decisions and lose institutional respect. The point is made as a unity argument that there is coherence in constitutional interpretation through one, centralised court. But this assertion shows contradictions in itself.

The Supreme Court already operates through multiple benches of equal strength, often delivering conflicting judgments that require later resolution. Doctrinal inconsistency is not a hypothetical risk; it is a present reality. Centralisation has not prevented fragmentation; it has merely concealed it within the same building. To argue that geographical decentralisation would uniquely threaten coherence is to ignore structural inconsistencies that already exist.

The real concern, therefore, is not fragmentation of law but redistribution of institutional power. A decentralised Supreme Court would dilute the dominance of Delhi-centric legal networks. It would upset the established hierarchies at the Bar and the Bench, establishing new sources of legal power. This is exactly what has been keeping the debate at a standstill -not because the idea is not feasible, but because it poses a threat to the status quo.

The Law Commission, in it’s 95^th and 229^th reports, has recommended the bifurcation of the Supreme Court into a constitutional court and regional appellate benches. This demand has been reiterated by parliamentary committees that have associated regional benches to the right of access to justice. However, even with this long-standing agreement beyond the Court, the institution has been an obstinate body, voting down the proposal in its entire court deliberations in 2010. This brings about an uneasy question: whether a court that is adjudicating on constitutional morality can still be immune to constitutional responsibility?

The claim that regional benches would diminish the majesty of the Supreme Court rests on the assumption that legitimacy is tied to physical centralisation. However, constitutional legitimacy is not spatial; it is relational. It relies on the accessibility, responsiveness and representativeness. A Court that is physically remote and socially exclusive risks becoming symbolically strong but substantively weak.

There are real concerns, of course. One cannot dismiss the possibility of conflicting judgments, territorial jurisdiction complexities and forum shopping. However, these are the design problems, not fatal flaws. Institutional innovation has addressed similar challenges in other jurisdictions.

For example, Germany separates its Federal Constitutional Court from its appellate system, ensuring both doctrinal coherence and decentralised decision-making. The United States maintains a central Supreme Court with highly selective jurisdiction, leaving geographically distributed circuit courts to handle most of the appellate work. The United Kingdom disperses appellate justice through layered institutional structures. Across these systems, the principle remains consistent: systems achieve accessibility not by the concentrating power in one institution, but by distributing it across levels and spaces.

India, however, has chosen concentration without filtration. The Supreme Court entertains everything from constitutional crises to routine bail matters, creating an institutional overload that no degree of centralisation can efficiently manage. In this context, regional benches are not an aberration; they are a corrective alignment with the scale of the country like India.

But one cannot transplant international models without adaptation. India's hybrid system requires a tailored solution. Simply creating regional benches without redefining jurisdiction risks replicating inefficiencies across multiple locations. A more compelling approach is structural reimagination: a permanent Constitution Bench in Delhi dealing exclusively with constitutional interpretation, alongside regional appellate benches handling routine matters. This approach would improve access while restoring the Court's constitutional focus.

There is also a tendency to view technology as an alternative to decentralisation now. Virtual hearings have improved accessibility, but they cannot substitute institutional presence. Courts are not merely adjudicatory bodies; they are sites of legal culture, mentorship and professional development. A virtual interface cannot replicate the organic growth of regional legal ecosystems.

Ultimately, the debate on regional benches exposes a deeper contradiction within the Indian constitutional system. We claim to guarantee equal access to justice, yet maintain a structure that privileges proximity and resources. We celebrate the Supreme Court as the guardian of fundamental rights, yet accept a model where accessing those rights requires extraordinary means.

This contradiction is no longer tenable.

Article 130 was a living provision, responsive to the requirements of the republic. Its further dormancy is not constitutional prudence, but institutional aversion. Regional benches are not a radical innovation into constitutional design, but a late realisation of it. Nevertheless, it should be done with clarity. In the absence of structural reform, it will be cosmetic. It can also transform the relationship between the Court and the citizen with it.

Ultimately, it is not a geographical argument. It is a discussion of power who possesses it, who enjoys it and who is not a part of it. The promise of justice will not be evenly spread until the time that question is answered honestly.

Vishal Vaibhav Singh is a fourth-year student at National Law University Odisha.