The Union Cabinet has approved a permanent bench of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in the Union Territory of Ladakh. It will be the court’s third seat after Srinagar and Jammu, sparing people in remote Ladakh long journeys to seek justice. As of 30 July 2026, the High Court had 44,557 pending cases, over 6,100 of them pending for more than 10 years. Ladakh became a Union Territory on 31 October 2019, and the court is common to both UTs. For comparison, the Bombay High Court (set up in 1862 under the Indian High Courts Act, 1861) sits in Mumbai with benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Panaji and Kolhapur.