Bombay High Court

Bombay High Court is located at Mumbai, Maharashtra, which has jurisdiction over the states of Maharashtra and Goa and the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, with the benches being at Nagpur and Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Panaji, Goa.


In Mumbai, it has Original Jurisdiction in addition to its Appellates. The Bombay High Court has the sanctioned strength of 75 judges

History & Premises


The Bombay High Court was inaugurated on 14 August 1862. Although the name of the city was changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995, the Court as an institution did not follow suit and remained as the Bombay High Court. The work on the present building of the High Court was commenced in April 1871 and completed in November 1878. It was designed by British engineer Col. J.A. Fuller. The first sitting in this building was on 10 January 1879. Architecture: Gothic revival in the Early English style. It is 562 feet (171 m) long and 187 feet (57 m) wide. To the west of the central tower are two octagonal towers. The statues of Justice and Mercy are atop this building.The 125th anniversary of the building is slated to be marked by the release of a book, commissioned by the Bar Association, called "The Bombay High Court: The Story of the Building - 1878–2003" by local historians Rahul Mehrotra and Sharada Dwivedi.

The Chief Justice and the Judges


The court has a Sanctioned strength of 75 judges. The court handles 3.4 lakh cases, both civil and criminal. 32 sitting judges of the court disposed around 2,000 cases each in 2004. The court has a ratio of 1:1.61 million :: judges to people. Recently, 8 new judges were elevated as High Court Judge. The Current Chief Justice is Hon'ble Mr. Justice Mohit S. Shah. His Lordship is the Former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court and was earlier, the Senior Most Judge at the High Court of Gujarat. The former Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar was elevated to the Supreme Court of India on 16 December 2009. Hon'ble Justice S.B Bhasme who resigned in the year 1979 to practice in the supreme court had a notable tenure amongst the high courts judges and passed revered judgments affecting matters of public importance. Hon'ble Justice S H Kapadia, Hon'ble Justice Sirpurkar have been elevated to the Supreme Court from Bombay High Court.

History


Sir Gilbert Stone,a Judge of the Madras High Court was appointed as first Chief Justice. The foundation stone of the new building (present High Court building) was laid by late Sir Hyde Gowan on 9-1-1937. The building was designed by Mr.H.A.N. Medd, Resident Architect. It was constructed at a cost of Rs.7,37,746/-.The building consisted of two stories with a garden courtyard in the centre. The outside dimensions are 400 ft x 230 ft. The original design provided for a main central dome rising 109 feet above ground land, the remainder of thebuilding being approximately 52 feet in height. The building has been constructed with sandstone. The building has Ashlar stone facing and brick hearting. The flooring in the corridors and offices is of Sikosa and Shahabad flag stones. The building is declared open on 6 January 1940. On the opening ceremony the Viceroy of India described this building as a poem in stone. The High Court has a fairly well planned garden on the eastern as well as western sides.

The High Court of Judicature at Nagpur continued to be housed in this building till the reorganisation of States in 1956. With effect from 1-11-1956, eight Marathi speaking districts of Vidarbha formed part of the greater bi-lingual State of Bombay which came into existence. Remaining fourteen Hindi speaking districts of the former State of Madhya Pradesh became part of the newly constituted State of Madhya Pradesh with the capital at Bhopal. The High Court of Madhya Pradesh was treated as successor of the former High Court at Nagpur