The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Centre and others on a petition seeking establishment of a National Court of Appeal with regional benches to adjudicate cases arising out of the High Courts.

A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice U U Lalit also sought response of the Law Ministry on the PIL filed by Puducherry-based advocate V Vasanthakumar.

The court also appointed senior advocates K K Venugopal and Salman Khurshid as amicus curiae to assist it on adjudicating the issue raised by the petitioner.

The court had earlier in 2014 asked the Centre to consider the plea by the advocate for establishing benches at Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata as the National Court of Appeal.
The government, however, had on December 3, 2014, rejected the proposal for setting up regional benches of the Supreme Court.