Madras High Court

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Chennai High Court building

The Madras High Court ( Tamil சென்னை உயர் நீதிமன்றம் ) is an Indian high court in the city of Chennai (formerly: Madras). Its area of ​​responsibility extends over the state of Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry .

history

Forerunners of the later Madras High Court were courts founded on the grounds of various Royal Charters since the beginning of the English branches in South India in the 17th century , which were combined to form the Madras Supreme Court in 1801 . After the Indian uprising of 1857 and the dissolution of the British East India Company , the court organization of the newly established Crown Colony of British India was reorganized with the Indian High Courts Act 1861 passed by the British House of Commons . Queen Victoria then arranged through Letters Patents to set up three High Courts for the three presidencies in Calcutta , Bombay and Madras. Shortly after the Calcutta High Court and the Bombay High Court , the Madras High Court was inaugurated on August 15, 1862 as the third high court . This judicial reform in British India preceded more than a decade of judicial reform in motherland Great Britain, which found expression in the Supreme Court of Judicature Acts (1873/1875).

Until India's independence in 1947, the presiding judges at Madras High Court were exclusively British. After independence, the High Court was initially responsible for the entire territory of the former Madras presidency . With the establishment of the state of Andhra in 1953 and the border revisions of the States Reorganization Act 1956, the jurisdiction of the high court over the ceded areas was lost.

The Madras Law Journal has been published by the Madras High Court since 1891 - India's oldest legal journal. The first editor was the lawyer N. Ramaratnam.

After the former French overseas territory of Pondicherry was annexed to India (1956 de facto , 1962 de jure ), the Madras High Court also received jurisdiction over the union territory of the same name, founded in 1963 .

On July 24, 2004, a branch ( bench ) of the High Court in Madurai was opened.

In 2017, there were 53 judges on the Madras High Court .

Courthouse

Partial view of Madras High Court
Madras High Court

Construction of today's courthouse began in 1882. The so-called Indo-Saracen style building was formally inaugurated on July 2, 1892. The building is crowned by a 53 meter high tower. On September 22, 1914, the building was slightly damaged during the First World War by the shelling of the German light cruiser SMS Emden operating in the Indian Ocean . In 2017 the 125th anniversary of the inauguration was celebrated.

Dispute about the name change

In 1969 the state of Madras was renamed 'Tamil Nadu' and in 1996 the capital Madras was renamed 'Chennai'. However, the High Court kept its old name unchanged. On July 20, 2016, the Indian Union Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced a bill ( High Courts (Alteration of Names) Bill, 2016 ) to the Lok Sabha , according to the modern Bombay High Court , Madras High Court and Calcutta High Court The names of the cities are to be renamed Mumbai High Court , Chennai High Court and Kolkata High Court . The project met with opposition at all three courts. On August 1, 2016, the Parliament of Tamil Nadu unanimously passed a resolution that the High Court should be renamed the High Court of Tamil Nadu instead . The government then assured that the relevant bill would be amended after consultations with the states concerned and then submitted to parliament for a vote.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ High Court, Madras - A REPORT (Law Day, 2007). (pdf) Retrieved November 9, 2017 (English).
  2. ^ Colonial Law Journals: Articles in the Madras Law Journal, 1891-47. University of Wisconsin, accessed November 8, 2017 .
  3. ↑ MADURAI BENCH OF MADRAS HIGH COURT. (No longer available online.) Madras High Court, archived from the original on August 23, 2009 ; accessed on November 9, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hcmadras.tn.nic.in
  4. ^ The Honorable Judges. (No longer available online.) Madras High Court, archived from the original on November 10, 2017 ; accessed on November 9, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hcmadras.tn.nic.in
  5. ↑ 125 th Year Celebrations of the Madras High Court Buildings. Retrieved November 9, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Govt. moves Bill to change names of High Courts. The Hindu, July 20, 2016, accessed November 5, 2016 .
  7. ^ Resolution for renaming of Madras High Court passed. The Hindu, August 2, 2016, accessed January 9, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Calcutta, Madras, Bombay high courts not to be renamed anytime soon. Hindustan Times, December 14, 2016, accessed November 9, 2017 .

Coordinates: 13 ° 5 ′ 16 ″  N , 80 ° 17 ′ 17.2 ″  E