LUCKNOW, Oct. 20 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has sought separate counter- affidavits (replies) detailing the progress from the state government and high court administration before November 18 in the matter of creation of 9,149 courts in Uttar Pradesh. This order was passed by a division bench comprising Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Rajeev Bharati on October 17 on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition registered as "suo motu" in the matter that seeks to upgrade the district judicial system on judge-population ratio basis. As per an earlier order of the court, the legal remembrancer-cum-principal secretary (law), UP, filed his affidavit. "We have perused the affidavit of the Legal Remembrancer-cum- Principal Secretary (Law), Government of Uttar Pradesh. Paragraph 18 of such affidavit refers to certain queries made by the Government vide letter dated 17.04.2025 to which the Registrar General has not responded. The affidavit was filed on 11.05.2025," the court said. "As per decision taken in the High Level Committee headed by the Chief Secretary, creation of 9149 courts in the districts was to be done in phased manner and according to which, in the first phase 402 posts of Civil Judge (Senior Division) and 601 posts of Civil Judge (Junior Division) were to be created. Paragraph 4 of the affidavit of the Principal Secretary (Finance) states that in furtherance of aforesaid decision dated 22.04.2024 for creation of 900 odd courts for the first phase is under process/ progress in the current year," the court added. "We would like to know the progress both from the High Court, the Legal Remembrancer-cum- Principal Secretary (Law), Government of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow as also the Additional Chief Secretary (Finance), who shall file their separate affidavits before the next date in this regard," the court ordered and directed to list this case as the first case of the day on November 18....