Finally, Karnataka Gets High court Benches outside Bangalore | A. Jayaram

Published on 14-07-2008 In General

Viewed 2072 times

Finally, Karnataka Gets High court Benches outside Bangalore

The inauguration of the circuit Benches of the High Court of Karnataka at Dharwad and Gulbarga is indeed a milestone in the history of the judiciary in Karnataka. They began to function on July 8. For the first time in 124 years, the High Court is losing part of its territorial jurisdiction, though there is no threat to its authority. Bangalore remains the principal seat of the High Court.

The Chief Court of Mysore (which came to be called the High Court in 1930) was established in June 1884 with a Britisher D.G.Plumer of the ICS as the first chief judge. With the reorganization of the State , its territorial jurisidiction was expanded. The pre-1956 High Court had eminent judges, both Indian and British. Of the Indian judges, some were from other States like today's Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala or the areas which merged with Mysore in 1956. For instance there was the well known judge of the 1930s Kundapur Shankaranarayana Rao who was originally from coastal Karnataka. Till Independence it was the final court of arbitration for the people of the State, as being an Indian State, Mysore was outside the purview of the Federal Court established in 1937.

One wonders why the people of the integrated areas did not demand the establishment of a Bench of the High Court at Dharwad or elsewhere at the time of reorganization. Had they placed the demand, it might have been conceded. Fifty two years ago, the connectivity to Bangalore from the northern districts by way of railways, road or even telephone was primitive. Probably the emphasis those days was on unification of the Kannada speaking areas and few dared to raise the jarring note of a separate High Court Bench. The lack of such a demand is all the more surprising as a committee set up by the Mysore Government in 1954 to go into the details of integration is stated to have recommended the creation of a Bench away from Bangalore. The panel consisted of M.Seshadri , a Mysore Civil Service minister in princely Mysore and Justice M.Singaravelu Mudaliar who was a judge of the Mysore High Court and later Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mysore (1944-46).

However it could be said that the first serious effort to get a Bench established at Dharwad or elsewhere was made in May 1969 and it came to be rejected by the then chief justice Hombe Gowda and the full Court. The demand was later to be rejected by the High Court nine other times –August 1973, March 1975, July 1990, April 1991, October 1991, August 1993, November 1994, June 2000 and June 2003. However in October 1979, the then Chief Justice D.M.Chandrashekar favoured the establishment of a Bench at Dhaward subject to the Government undertaking to construct a suitable building for it. He too had opposed a Bench unless amenities were provided .

However it goes to the credit of the advocates of Hubli-Dharwad who campaigned for the Bench that the circuit benches at Dharwad and Gulbarga have come to be established. They were undaunted by the ten rejections and succeeded in their final appeal. The former chief justice of Karnataka Nagendra Kumar Jain,who was from Rajasthan and the recent incumbent Cyriac Joseph should also take the credit for the establishment of the Benches. It must be mentioned that the demand for a Bench at Gulbarga came to be made at a later stage. In fact there were other claimants for the Bench from Belgaum, Bijapur, Bidar and Bellary. There was also a rather faint demand for a Bench at Mangalore. The conflicting claims complicated the issue.

What began as an agitation by Dharwad and Hubli lawyers has now benefited the people of Hyderabad-Karnatak also. The Gulbarga lawyers effectively put forth before the State Government and the High Court the fact that the revenue divisional headquarters is 360 km. distant from Dharwad and it is in fact better connected with Bangalore by train though the two places are 613 km. apart. Compared with the Gulbarga-Bangalore distance, Dharwad is closer to Bangalore (426 km. by road).

Though only of academic interest today, let us now go into the report of a committee of High Court judges which in June 2000 rejected the demand . Constituted by the then chief justice Y.Bhaskar Rao in July 1999 the committee considered the cases of Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Bijapur, Bidar and Bellary for the proposed Bench. The panel consisted of Justices Ashok Bhan, R.V.Raveendran, P.Vishwanatha Shetty, A.M.Farooq and Chandrashekaraiah. In its 25 page report, it had said that the demands for the Bench did not meet any of the 21 criteria laid down by the Jashwant Singh committee. Jashwant Singh, a former judge of the Supreme Court had headed a committee set up by the Government of India in 1985 to go into the demand for setting up Benches of the High Courts of various States. It had noted that the pendency of cases on the file of the High Court arising out of the eight districts of Bombay and Hyderabad Karnataks had declined from 30.42 per cent in November 1997 to 18.37 per cent in January 2000.

Thinking of the reorganization of the State in 1956, one recalls the migration of lawyers from the integrated areas to Bangalore to practise in the High Court. The surnames and names of lawyers from the northern districts had sounded strange to Bangaloreans. Many of them throve in the profession and set up homes in Bangalore. House sites were cheap and easily available those days. Several lawyers and judicial officers from the Bombay-Hyderabad Karnatak rose to the Bench of the High Court. Interestingly only two of them became chief justices V.S.Malimath and K.A.Swami. One reason for that was the transfer of chief justices from other high courts. It had happended in 1957 also when Justice Subodh Ranjan Dasgupta of the Calcutta High Court became the chief justice of Mysore succeeding Rudrapatna Venkataramaiah.

It was unfortuate that in those days, there was some doubt at the level of the Supreme Court and the Government of India about the calibre of judges of old Mysore. In fact a committee headed by Justice M.C.Chagla went into the matter and one of the judges of the erstwhile Mysore High Court Padmanabhaiah came to be retired.

Today a good number of lawyers have begun to relocate their practice to Hubli-Dharwad and Gulbarga.

It is also noteworthy that the design of the buildings to house the two circuit Benches has been inspired by that of the dear old Attara Katcheri housing the principal seat of the High Court in Bangalore. Some of those in the High Court had at one time advocated the demolition of the Attara Katcheri (built in 1864) to construct a new building. The Ramakrishna Hegde government had even sanctioned Rs.20 crores for that purpose. Some public spirited citizens took the matter to the Supreme Court and stopped the demolition. The annexe came to be built. Designed by Major General R.L.Sankey in the 19th Century, the Attara Katcheri has provided the design for the circuit courts. The two have also been painted in the same colour as the High Court building in Bangalore-terra cotta or Pompeian red.

0 Comments

Blog

Print