Industries Minister Bharath: High Court bench will be set up in Kurnool — advocates told not to protest the wait

Kurnool’s long demand for an Andhra Pradesh High Court bench received a ministerial assurance on 4 September 2026. Industries and Commerce Minister T.G. Bharath Gupta, speaking at a ‘Two Years of Trust – Development and Welfare’ programme in the city’s 10th Ward, said a High Court bench will be set up in Kurnool.

He said he had discussed the matter with Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who had assured him, and that Information Technology Minister Nara Lokesh had also clarified the government’s intent. The process, Bharath said, involves legal procedures. His appeal to the district’s advocates was direct: do not take hasty decisions, and do not allege that the government plans only a camp court or a mobile bench. That line acknowledges a protest mood among lawyers without this desk inventing a bar-association resolution text that was not locked.

In the same programme he remarked that eligible beneficiaries would soon be able to apply for pensions — a welfare note that sits beside the judicial promise but is not a substitute for a Gazette notification of a permanent bench.

For Rayalaseema litigants, a Kurnool bench is about distance, cost and dignity: fewer overnight trips to the coastal seat of the High Court, and a visible judicial footprint in the region. Ministers have promised the bench before. What 4 September adds is Bharath’s on-record claim of Naidu and Lokesh assurances, plus an explicit plea against the “camp/mobile only” suspicion.

This cutting does not invent a Presidential notification, a sanctioned judge strength, or a commissioning date. It locks the Industries Minister’s public assurance in Kurnool ward politics, the named references to Naidu and Lokesh, and the appeal for advocates’ patience. Until a formal notification arrives, Kurnool’s bench remains a Political promise with a district audience — and a story this edition keeps on the Kurnool district card with the correct district spelling.

Rayalaseema’s demand for a High Court bench is older than any single minister’s ward programme. Distance to the principal seat translates into travel cost for appellants, witnesses and young lawyers. A permanent bench in Kurnool would redistribute that burden. That is why advocates react sharply to any hint that the promise might shrink to a camp court or a mobile sitting.

Bharath’s choice of stage matters. A 10th Ward ‘Two Years of Trust’ programme is constituency politics; placing a High Court assurance on that stage ties judicial infrastructure to local welfare messaging, including his remark that pension applications would soon open for eligible beneficiaries. Governance and campaign language share the microphone.

Naming Naidu and Lokesh as having assured or clarified the bench gives the promise a Cabinet-level flavour without being a Law Department notification. Legal procedures, Bharath correctly noted, still stand between a speech and a functioning bench. Those procedures can include consultation with the Chief Justice, central approval tracks, and infrastructure for courtrooms and residences — none of which were itemised in the locked tip, so none are invented here.

This edition’s Kurnool card therefore holds a Political assurance, not a commissioning ceremony. Readers in the district should hear the promise; readers elsewhere should hear the limit: until notification, the bench is still a ministerial assertion backed by named references to the Chief Minister and the IT Minister.