Calcutta High Court

Calcutta High Court
Calcutta High Court Building
Established	1 July 1862 (1862-07-01)
Location	Principal Seat: Kolkata, West Bengal Circuit Benches: Jalpaiguri & Port Blair (A & N Islands)
Coordinates	22°34′6″N 88°20′36″E
Composition method	Presidential with confirmation of Chief Justice of India and Governor of respective state.
Authorized by	Constitution of India
Judge term length	Till 62 years of age
Number of positions	72 {54 Permanent ; 18 Addl.}
Website	calcuttahighcourt.gov.in
Chief Justice
Currently	Rajesh Bindal(acting)
Since	29 April 2021

The Calcutta High Court is the oldest [High Courts in India. It is located in B.B.D. Bagh, Kolkata, West Bengal. 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.

The court has a sanctioned judge strength of 72. The structure was designed by Walter Long Bozzi Granville.

History

The Calcutta High Court is one of the three High Courts in India established at the Presidency Towns by Letters patent granted by 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 Union Cabinet on 5 July 2016 along with the renaming of its two other counterparts in Chennai and Mumbai. The Bill called High Courts (Alternation of Names) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 19 July 2016 and is yet to be passed by both Houses of Parliament. Hence, 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. On 7 February 2019, President Ram Nath Kovind finalised the opening of the other circuit bench in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal with the jurisdiction area within 5 districts- Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar.

Chief Justice

The current Acting Chief Justice of the court is Justice Rajesh Bindal.

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 a Wahabi Muslim named Abdullah.

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
1	Sir Barnes Peacock	1862–1870
2	Sir Richard Couch	1870–1875
3	Sir Richard Garth	1875–1886
4	Sir William Comer Petheram	1886–1896
5	Sir Francis William Maclean	1896–1909
6	Sir Lawrence Hugh Jenkins	1909–1915
7	Sir Lancelot Sanderson	1915–1926
8	Sir George Claus Rankin	1926–1934
9	Sir Harold Derbyshire	1934–1946
10	Sir Arthur Trevor Harries	1946–1952
After Indian Independence
1	Shri Phani Bhusan Chakravartti	1952–1958
2	Shri Kulada Charan Das Gupta	1958–1959
3	Shri Surajit Chandra Lahiri	1959–1961
4	Shri Himansu Kumar Bose	1961–1966
5	Deep Narayan Sinha	1966–1970
6	Shri Prasanta Bihari Mukharji	1970–1972
7	Shri Sankar Prasad Mitra	1972–1979
8	Shri Amarendra Nath Sen	1979–1981
9	Shri Sambhu Chandra Ghose	1981–1983
10	Shri Samarendra Chandra Deb	January 1983 – February 1983
11	Shri Satish Chandra	1983–1986
12	Shri Anil Kumar Sen	September 1986 – October 1986
13	Shri Chittatosh Mookerjee	1 November 1986 – 1 November 1987
14	Shri Debi Singh Tewatia	1 November 1987 – 1988
15	Shri Prabodh Dinkarrao Desai	1988–1991
16	Shri Nagendra Prasad Singh	4 February 1992 – 14 June 1992
17	Shri Anandamoy Bhattacharjee	1992–1994
18	Shri Krishna Chandra Agarwal	1994–1996
19	V. N. Khare	2 February 1996 – 20 March 1997
20	Shri Prabha Shankar Mishra	1997–1998
21	Shri Ashok Kumar Mathur	22 December 1999 – 6 June 2004
22	Shri V. S. Sirpurkar	20 March 2005 – 11 January 2007
23	Shri Surinder Singh Nijjar	8 March 2007 – 16 November 2009
24	Shri Mohit Shantilal Shah	24 December 2009 – 25 June 2010
25	Shri Jai Narayan Patel	2010 – 4 October 2012
-	Shri Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta (acting)	5 October 2012 – 30 October 2012
26	Shri Arun Kumar Mishra	14 December 2012 – 6 July 2014
27	Shri Manjula Chellur	5 August 2014 – 21 August 2016
-	Shri Girish Chandra Gupta (acting)	22 August 2016 – 20 September 2016
28	Shri Girish Chandra Gupta	21 September 2016 – 30 November 2016
-	Shri Nishita Nirmal Mhatre (acting)	1 December 2016 – 20 September 2017
-	Shri Rakesh Tiwari (acting)	20 September 2017 – 24 October 2017
-	Shri Jyotirmay Bhattacharya (acting)	25 October 2017 – 30 April 2018
29	Jyotirmay Bhattacharya	1 May 2018 – 24 September 2018
-	Shri Debasish Kar Gupta (acting)	25 September 2018 – 29 October 2018
30	Shri Debasish Kar Gupta	30 October 2018 – 31 December 2018
-	Shri Biswanath Somadder (acting)	1 January 2019 — 3 April 2019
31	Shri Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan	4 April 2019 — 28 April 2021
-	Shri Rajesh Bindal (acting)	29 April 2021 — Incumbent

Judges

The court has a Sanctioned strength of 72 (Permanent:54, Additional:18) judges.

Judges Elevated to the Supreme Court of India-

Sr. No	Name of the Judge, Justice	Date of Elevation	Date of Retirement	Parent High Court
1	Indira Banerjee	7 August 2018	23 September 2022	Calcutta
2	Aniruddha Bose	24 May 2019	10 April 2024	Calcutta

Judges Transferred/Elevated from the Calcutta High Court-

Sr. No.	Name of the Judge, Justice	Recruitment	Date of Appointment	Date of Retirement	Remark
1	Biswanath Somadder	BAR	22 June 2006	14 December 2025	Chief Justice of Meghalaya High Court
2	Dipankar Datta	BAR	22 June 2006	8 February 2027	Chief Justice of Bombay High Court
3	Sanjib Banerjee	BAR	22 June 2006	1 November 2023	Chief Justice of Madras High Court
4	Joymalya Bagchi	BAR	27 June 2011	2 October 2028	Judge of Andhra Pradesh High Court
5	Sudip Ahluwalia	SERVICE	1 October 2013	30 December 2021	Judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court

Sitting Judges of Calcutta High Court-

See also: List of sitting judges of High Courts of India § Calcutta High Court

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. In 1977 another building named High Court Centenary Building or annexed building was inaugurated to reduce the pressure.

Gallery

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  Calcutta High Court in the 1890s

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  Calcutta High Court in the 1860s

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  Calcutta High Court - Centenary Building

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  Calcutta High Court - New Multi-storey Building

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  Calcutta High Court at Night

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  Inside View of Calcutta High Court

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  Calcutta High Court - Sculptured Pillar

References

• Jurisdiction and Seats of Indian High Courts
• Judge strength in High Courts increased

External links

• Official website
• Former official website