Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka High Court is the High Court of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located in Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka. The high court functions out of a red brick building known as Attara Kacheri. It is in front of Vidhana Soudha, which is the seat of the legislature of Karnataka.

History

The history of the Karnataka High Court can be traced back to the year 1884 when the Chief Court of Mysore was created with three judges and was designated as the highest court of appeal, reference and revision in the State of Mysore, the earlier name of Karnataka. The court had District Courts, Sub-ordinate Judges' Courts and Munsiff Courts to assist it on civil cases and a Court of Sessions, District Magistrate and First, Second and Third Class Magistrates to assist it on criminal cases. In 1881, the office of the Chief Judge was created and the designated person had the utmost authority in the court. In 1930, it was renamed as the High Court of Mysore and the Chief Judge was given the new name of Chief Justice. In 1973, it got its present name of Karnataka High Court.

Premises

The high court is located in a building called as Attara Kacheri (meaning Eighteen offices). It is a two-storied building, red in colour and has been built in the neoclassical style. The construction of the building was supervised by Rao Bahadur Arcot Narayanaswamy Mudaliar and completed in the year 1868. It was earlier named as Old Public Offices and got its name of Attara Kacheri when the eighteen departments in the general and revenue secretariat of the Mysore Government were shifted here from their crowded premises in Tipu Sultan's summer palace. There was a proposal to demolish this building in the year 1982. However, a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in order to save this ancient building from getting demolished. This was the first PIL to be filed in the Karnataka High court and the case was heard in the very building that was supposed to be demolished. In August 1984, the judges M. N. Venkatachaliah and Vittal Rao pronounced a judgement that stayed the demolition.

Judges

The high court has a sanctioned judge strength of 40. Many judges have presided in the high court with four of them including M. N. Venkatachaliah going on to become the Chief Justice of India and at least 12 of them including N. Venkatachala being appointed as judges in the Supreme Court of India. Raja Dharma Praveena Diwan Bahadur P Mahadevayya, Nittoor Srinivasa Rau, Sam Piroj Bharucha and G. T. Nanavati were some of the Chief Justices who presided over this court.

Issues

Additional bench

The Karnataka High Court bench is currently functional only in Bangalore. There has been a long standing demand for an additional bench in the northern region of Karnataka. The main reason being the location of Bangalore in the south-east corner of the state causes great hardship for people who have to visit the high court from the distant northern regions of the state. This issue led to lot of agitations including boycott of court proceedings by lawyers in the northern region of Karnataka. The demand was finally met in the year 2006 when it was decided that circuit benches of the High Court would be set up in Dharwad and Gulbarga.. Accordingly circuit benches were set up in Dharwad and Gulbarga. They were inaugurated on 4 July 2008 and 5 July 2008 respectively

Controversy

In late 2002, there are 14 newspapers and periodicals have reported that three judges from the High Court of Karnataka was allegedly involved in a sex scandal in Mysore. A high-level judicial inquiry committee had been established in this regard by Chief Justice. Later, the committee has acquitted judges as they could not find any substantive evidences.

Translation of "Karnataka High Court"

Hindi: कर्नाटक उच्च न्यायालय, Tamil: கர்நாடகா உயர் நீதிமன்றம்.