Prayagraj, Feb. 19 -- Pradeep Kumar Verma has a routine. The Allahabad high court advocate leaves his single-storey residence in Prayagraj's Naini at 9.30am. The journey, in his Maruti Swift Dzire, takes 40 minutes on an average day. He takes the Naini-Mirzapur road that leads to the new Yamuna bridge, before taking a right turn at Bangadh Dharamshala and turning on to Jawaharlal Nehru Road, which leads him to the high court premises.

There, the 44-year-old parks his car, and walks to his chamber -- No 36 in Upadhyay Hall - where he sits for nearly seven hours. By 5.30pm, as the crowds thin around India's largest high court, he gets up from his chair to walk down to Gate 2, his clerk balancing an unstable tower of papers and files behind...