Calcutta High Court
| Calcutta High Court | |
|---|---|
 Calcutta High Court Building | |
| Established | 1862 |
| Country | India |
| 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 |
| Number of positions | 32 |
| Chief Justice | |
| Currently | Justice Arun Mishra |
| Since | 2010 |
| Lead position ends | 2012 |
The Calcutta High Court (Bengali: কলকাতা উচ্চ আদালত) 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. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court building is an exact replica of the Cloth Hall, Ypres, in Belgium.[1] . It is recorded that when the original Cloth Hall burnt down, a blue print of Granville's Calcutta High Court had to be consulted before rebuilding it.
The court has a sanctioned judge strength of 63. Despite the name of the city having officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001, the old name is retained by the court as it is an institution.
Permanent 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 May 2, 1950. The Calcutta High Court maintains a permanent circuit bench in Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Chief Justice
The current Chief Justice is Arun Mishra. Previously, He was Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court. Barnes Peacock was the first Chief Justice of the High Court. He assumed the charge when the court was founded on 1 July 1862. Romesh Chandra Mitter was the first Indian officiating Chief Justice and Phani Bhushan Chakravartti was the first Indian permanent Chief Justice of the court. The longest serving Chief Justice was Sankar Prasad Mitra.
List of former Chief Justices
| Chief Justice | Term |
|---|---|
| Barnes Peacock | 1862–1870 |
| Richard Couch | 1870–1875 |
| Richard Garth | 1875–1886 |
| William Comer Petheram | 1886–1896 |
| Francis Maclean | 1896–1909 |
| Lawrence Huge Jenkins | 1909–1915 |
| Lancelot Sanderson | 1915–1926 |
| George Claus Rankin | 1926–1934 |
| Harold Derbyshire | 1934–1946 |
| Arthur Trevor Harries | 1946–1952 |
| Phani Bhusan Chakravartti (First Indian Chief Justice in Calcutta High Court) | 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 Mukharji | 1970–1972 |
| Sankar Prasad Mitra | 1972–1979 |
| Amarendra Nath Sen | 1979–1981 |
| Sambhu Chandra Ghose | 1981–1983 |
| Samarendra Chandra Deb | Jan 1983–Feb 1983 |
| Satish Chandra | 1983–1986 |
| Anil Kumar Sen | Sept 1986–Oct 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 |
| Visheswar Nath 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 Misra | 2012–till date |
The 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.[2]
Jurisdiction Question
During 2010, over six decades after India's independence, a curious if swiftly quashed [3] legal debate questioned whether the court was still technically under the jurisdiction of the Queen of the United Kingdom rather than the Indian state.
References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Calcutta High Court. |
External links
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