Stop calling lower courts: Punjab and Haryana High Court bars common terms, directs using district courts, trial courts

Punjab and Haryana High Court issued the cicrular dated December 24, 2025 (Image generated using AI)

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed all courts in the states of Punjab, Haryana and UT Chandigarh to be referred to as “district courts/district judiciary/trial courts”.

In a circular uploaded on high court’s website on January 14, the high court directed that the terms “subordinate judge/subordinate courts/lower courts” should not be used in the official correspondence and in the high court and the district courts.

“Hon’ble the Chief Justice and Judges have been pleased to direct that henceforth, all the Courts in the States of Punjab, Haryana and U.T. Chandigarh other than the High Court, shall be referred to as “District Courts/District Judiciary/Trial Courts”. The terms “Subordinate Judge/Subordinate Courts/Lower Courts” shall not be used in the official correspondence as well as in the judicial functioning of the High Court as well as the District Courts, unless the same is inevitable,” the circular  dated December 24, 2025 read.

The circular was uploaded on high court’s website on January 14.

In 2024, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, had directed the registry of the Court to not refer to the ‘Trial Courts’ as ‘Lower Courts.

“It will be appropriate if the Registry of this Court stops referring to the Trial Courts as ‘Lower Courts’. Even the record of the Trial Court should not be referred to as Lower Court Record (LCR). Instead, it should be referred to as the Trial Court Record (TCR),” the bench had said.

In a judgment passed last year by the division bench of Justices Oka and Augustine George Masih, the court had reiterated its direction that the record of the Trial Court should not be referred to as “Lower Court Record”.

“Describing any Court as a “Lower Court” is against the ethos of our Constitution,” the court had said.

In 2024, the then Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud had said district judiciary is the “backbone of the judiciary” and thus a crucial component of the rule of law and calling it subordinate must be stopped.

“The district judiciary is therefore called upon to shoulder tremendous responsibility and is aptly described as the ‘backbone of the judiciary’,” Justice Chandrachud said, adding, “The spine is the core of the nervous system. To sustain the spine of the legal system, we must stop calling the district judiciary the ‘subordinate’ judiciary”.