Calcutta High Court

Calcutta High Court
Calcutta High Court Building
Established 1 July 1862 (1862-07-01)
Country  India
Location

Principal Seat: Kolkata, West Bengal

Circuit Benches: Jalpaiguri & Port Blair (A & N Islands)
Coordinates 22°34′6″N 88°20′36″E / 22.56833°N 88.34333°E / 22.56833; 88.34333Coordinates: 22°34′6″N 88°20′36″E / 22.56833°N 88.34333°E / 22.56833; 88.34333
Composition method Presidential with confirmation of Chief Justice of India and Governor of respective state.
Authorized by Constitution of India
Decisions are appealed to Supreme Court of India
Judge term length Till 62 years of age
No. of positions 72
Website calcuttahighcourt.gov.in
Chief Justice
Currently Debasish kar Gupta [1]
Since 1 May 2018[2]

The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court building's design is based on the Cloth Hall, Ypres, in Belgium.[3]

The court has a sanctioned judge strength of 72.

History

The Calcutta High Court is one of the three High Courts in India established at the Presidency Towns by Letters patent granted by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, bearing date 26 June 1862, and is the oldest High Court in India. It was established as the High Court of Judicature at Fort William on 1 July 1862 under the High Courts Act, 1861, which was preceded by the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William.

Despite the name of the city having officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001, the Court, as an institution retained the old name. The bill to rename it as Kolkata High Court was approved by the Cabinet on 5 July 2016 along with the renaming of its two other counterparts in Chennai and Mumbai.[4] However, the High Court still retains the old name.

Principal seat and benches

The seat of the Calcutta High Court is at Kolkata, capital of West Bengal. As per the Calcutta High Court (Extension of Jurisdiction) Act, 1953, the Calcutta High Court's jurisdiction was extended to cover Chandernagore (now called Chandannagar) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as of 2 May 1950. The Calcutta High Court extended its Circuit Bench in Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and in Jalpaiguri, the divisional headquarters of the North Bengal region of West Bengal.

Chief Justice

The current Chief Justice is Jyotirmay Bhattacharya.[5]

Sir Barnes Peacock was the first Chief Justice of the High Court. He assumed the charge when the court was founded on 1 July 1862. Justice Romesh Chandra Mitra was the first Indian officiating Chief Justice and Justice Phani Bhushan Chakravartti was the first Indian permanent Chief Justice of the court. The longest serving Chief Justice was Justice Sankar Prasad Mitra.

On 20 September 1871, the acting Chief Justice, Sir John Paxton Norman, was murdered on the steps of the courthouse by Wahabi Muslims named Abdullah.[6][7]

List of Chief Justices

For Chief Justices of the previous Supreme Court of Bengal see Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William.

Chief Justice Term
Sir Barnes Peacock 1862–1870
Sir Richard Couch 1870–1875
Sir Richard Garth 1875–1886
Sir William Comer Petheram 1886–1896
Sir Francis William Maclean 1896–1909
Sir Lawrence Hugh Jenkins 1909–1915
Sir Lancelot Sanderson 1915–1926
Sir George Claus Rankin 1926–1934
Sir Harold Derbyshire 1934–1946
Sir Arthur Trevor Harries 1946–1952
Phani Bhusan Chakravartti 1952–1958
Kulada Charan Das Gupta 1958–1959
Surajit Chandra Lahiri 1959–1961
Himansu Kumar Bose 1961–1966
Deep Narayan Sinha 1966–1970
Prasanta Bihari Mukherjee 1970–1972
Sankar Prasad Mitra 1972–1979
Amarendra Nath Sen 1979–1981
Sambhu Chandra Ghose 1981–1983
Samarendra Chandra Deb January 1983 – February 1983
Satish Chandra 1983–1986
Anil Kumar Sen September 1986 – October 1986
Chittatosh Mookerjee 1 November 1986 – 1 November 1987
Debi Singh Tewatia 1 November 1987 – 1988
Prabodh Dinkarrao Desai 1988–1991
Nagendra Prasad Singh 4 February 1992 – 14 June 1992
Anandamoy Bhattacharjee 1992–1994
Krishna Chandra Agarwal 1994–1996
V. N. Khare 2 February 1996 – 20 March 1997
Prabha Shankar Mishra 1997–1998
Ashok Kumar Mathur 22 December 1999 – 6 June 2004
V. S. Sirpurkar 20 March 2005 – 11 January 2007
Surinder Singh Nijjar 8 March 2007 – 16 November 2009
Mohit Shantilal Shah 2009–2010
Jainarayan Patel 2010–2012
Arun Kumar Mishra 2012–2014
Manjula Chellur 2014–2016
Girish Chandra Gupta 21 September 2016–30 November 2016
Nishita Nirmal Mhatre (acting) 1 December 2016–20 September 2017
Rakesh Tiwari (acting) 20 September 2017– 24 October 2017
Jyotirmay Bhattacharya 25 October 2017 – present

Building

The neo-Gothic High Court building was constructed in 1872, ten years after the establishment of the court itself. The design, by then government architect Walter Granville, was loosely modelled on the 13th-century Cloth Hall at Ypres, Belgium.[8] In 1977 another building named High Court Centenary Building or annexed building was inaugurated to reduce the pressure.[9]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.calcuttahighcourt.gov.in/Judges/CJ-and-Judges
  2. ↑ "The Hon'ble Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya, Chief Justice". Calcutta High Court. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  3. ↑ Court's official website
  4. ↑ Change of name of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta HC
  5. ↑ Krishnan, Murali (2017-10-21). "Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya appointed Acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court". Bar & Bench. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
  6. ↑ Ivermee, Robert. Secularism, Islam and Education in India, 1830–1910.
  7. ↑ James, Halen. "The Assassination of Lord Mayo : The "First" Jihad?" (PDF). IJAPS,Vol 5, No.2 (July 2009). Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  8. ↑ Court's official website
  9. ↑ HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. "CITY SESSIONS COURT, CALCUTTA". calcuttahighcourt.nic.in. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
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