View source for Calcutta High Court

{{Short description|High Court in West Bengal, India}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2015}}
{{Use Indian English|date=August 2015}}
{{Infobox high court
| court_name = Calcutta High Court
| native_name = কলকাতা উচ্চ আদালত
| image = Calcutta highcourt.jpg
| caption = Calcutta High Court building
| established = {{start date and age|df=yes|1862|07|01}}
| jurisdiction = [[West Bengal]] and [[Andaman & Nicobar Islands]]
| location = Principal Seat: [[Calcutta]] (Kolkata), [[West Bengal]]<br /> 
Circuit Benches: [[Jalpaiguri]] & [[Port Blair]] ([[Andaman and Nicobar Islands|A & N Islands]])
| coordinates = {{coord|22|34|6|N|88|20|36|E|type:landmark_region:IN|display=title,inline}}
| type = [[President of India|Presidential]] with [[advice and consent|confirmation]] of [[Chief Justice of India]] and [[Governors of states of India|Governor of respective state]].
| authority = [[Constitution of India]]
| terms = Till 62 years of age
| positions = 72
| website = [http://calcuttahighcourt.gov.in calcuttahighcourt.gov.in]
| chiefjudgetitle = [[Chief Justice]]
| chiefjudgename = [[T. S. Sivagnanam]]
| termstart = 11 May 2023
| termend = 
}}

'''Calcutta High Court''' is the oldest [[High Courts of India|High Court]] in [[India]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Which is the oldest High Court in India? |url=https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/calcutta-high-court-which-is-the-oldest-high-court-in-india-article-95161438 |access-date=2022-10-29 |website=TimesNow |language=en}}</ref> It is located at [[Esplanade, Kolkata|Esplanade Row West]], [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] (Kolkata), [[West Bengal]]. It has jurisdiction over the [[Indian state|state]] of [[West Bengal]] and the [[Union Territory]] of the [[Andaman and Nicobar Islands]]. The High Court building's design is somewhat based on the ''Lakenhal'' ([[Ypres Cloth Hall|Cloth Hall]]) in [[Ypres]] in [[Flanders]], [[Belgium]].<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |url=http://calcuttahighcourt.nic.in/ |title=Court's official website |access-date=7 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306142046/http://calcuttahighcourt.nic.in/ |archive-date=6 March 2007 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

Currently, the court has a [[Judiciary of India#Judge strength|sanctioned judge strength]] of 72.

==History==
[[File:Calcutta High Court 1860.jpg|thumb|Calcutta High Court in the 1860s]]
[[File:Calcutta High Court in the 1890s.JPG|thumb|Calcutta High Court in the 1890s]]

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]], and is the oldest High Court in India. It was brought into existence as the '''High Court of Judicature at Fort William''' by the Letters Patent dated 14 May 1862,<ref>[https://www.calcuttahighcourt.gov.in/ A Brief History about Calcutta High Court]</ref> issued under the [[Indian High Courts Act 1861|High Courts Act, 1861]], which was preceded by the [[Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William]]. The court was formally opened on 1 July 1862. The building structure was designed by Walter Long Bozzi Granville.

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 [[Madras High Court|Chennai]] and [[Bombay High Court|Mumbai]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/cabinet-renames-bombay-madras-calcutta-high-courts-kolkata-mumbai-chennai/|title=Cabinet renames high courts in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai|date=5 July 2016}}</ref> The Bill called High Courts (Alteration of Names) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 19 July 2016<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-moves-bill-to-change-names-of-high-courts/article8872001.ece|title=Govt. moves Bill to change names of High Courts|last=PTI|newspaper=The Hindu|date=20 July 2016|access-date=9 May 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161105171321/http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-moves-bill-to-change-names-of-high-courts/article8872001.ece|archive-date=5 November 2016|df=dmy-all}}</ref>  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 Calcutta (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 [[Jalpaiguri division|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|Jalpaiguri, West Bengal]] with the jurisdiction area<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://doj.gov.in/sites/default/files/Orders%20Notification%20of%20establishment%20of%20a%20bench%20of%20Calcutta%20High%20Court%20at%20Jalpaiguri.pdf|title=Orders/notification of establishment of a bench of Calcutta High Court at Jalpaiguri (English/ Hindi) (07.02.2019)|access-date=12 February 2019}}</ref> within 5 districts- [[Darjeeling district|Darjeeling]], [[Kalimpong district|Kalimpong]], [[Jalpaiguri district|Jalpaiguri]], [[Alipurduar district|Alipurduar]] and [[Cooch Behar district|Cooch Behar]].

==Chief Justice==
The current Chief Justice of the court is Justice [[T. S. Sivagnanam]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://barandbench.com/chief-justices-five-high-courts-2/|title=Chief Justices appointed to Five High Courts [Read Notifications] - Bar & Bench|date=2018-10-24|work=Bar & Bench|access-date=2018-10-25|language=en-US}}</ref> [[Barnes Peacock|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. [[Romesh Chandra Mitra]] 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 Mr. Sankar Prasad Mitra.

==List of Chief Justices==
{| class="wikitable sortable" width="70%"
!#
!Chief Justice
!Term 
|-
!—
|Sir [[Romesh Chandra Mitra]]
|1861 —1861
|-
!1
| Sir [[Barnes Peacock]]
|1862&ndash;1870
|-
!2
| Sir [[Richard Couch (judge)|Richard Couch]]
|1870&ndash;1875
|-
!3
| Sir [[Richard Garth]]
|1875&ndash;1886
|-
!4
| Sir [[William Comer Petheram]]
|1886&ndash;1896
|-
!5
| Sir [[Francis William Maclean]]
|1896&ndash;1909
|-
!6
|Sir [[Lawrence Hugh Jenkins]]
| 1909&ndash;1915
|-
!7
| Sir [[Lancelot Sanderson]]
| 1915&ndash;1926
|-
!8
| Sir [[George Claus Rankin]]
|1926&ndash;1934
|-
!9
| Sir [[Harold Derbyshire]] 
|1934&ndash;1946
|-
!10
| Sir [[Arthur Trevor Harries]]
|1946&ndash;1952
|-
! colspan="3" |After Indian Independence
|-
!11
| Shri [[Phani Bhusan Chakravartti]]
|1952&ndash;1958
|-
!12
| Shri [[Kulada Charan Das Gupta]]
|1958&ndash;1959
|-
!13
| Shri [[Surajit Chandra Lahiri]]
|1959&ndash;1961
|-
!14
| Shri [[Himansu Kumar Bose]]
|1961&ndash;1966
|-
!15
|Shri [[Deep Narayan Sinha]]
|1966&ndash;1970
|-
!16
| Shri [[Prasanta Bihari Mukharji]]
|1970&ndash;1972
|-
!17
| Shri [[Sankar Prasad Mitra]]
|1972&ndash;1979
|-
!18
| Shri [[Amarendra Nath Sen]]
|1979&ndash;1981
|-
!19
| Shri [[Sambhu Chandra Ghose]]
|1981&ndash;1983
|-
!20
| Shri [[Samarendra Chandra Deb]]
|January 1983 &ndash; February 1983
|-
!21
| Shri Satish Chandra
|1983&ndash;1986
|-
!22
| Shri [[Anil Kumar Sen]]
|September 1986 &ndash; October 1986
|-
!23
| Shri [[Chittatosh Mookerjee]]
|1 November 1986 &ndash; 1 November 1987
|-
!24
| Shri [[Debi Singh Tewatia]]
|1 November 1987 &ndash; 1988
|-
!25
| Shri [[Prabodh Dinkarrao Desai]]
|1988&ndash;1991
|-
!26
| Shri Nagendra Prasad Singh
|4 February 1992 &ndash; 14 June 1992
|-
!27
| Shri [[Anandamoy Bhattacharjee]]
|1992&ndash;1994
|-
!28
| Shri [[Krishna Chandra Agarwal]]
|1994&ndash;1996
|-
!29
|Shri [[V. N. Khare]]
|2 February 1996 &ndash; 20 March 1997
|-
!30
|Shri [[Prabha Shankar Mishra]]
|1997&ndash;1998
|-
!31
|Shri [[Ashok Kumar Mathur]]
|22 December 1999 &ndash; 6 June 2004
|-
!32
|Shri [[V. S. Sirpurkar]]
|20 March 2005 &ndash; 11 January 2007
|-
!33
|Shri [[Surinder Singh Nijjar]]
|8 March 2007 &ndash; 16 November 2009
|-
!34
|Shri [[Mohit Shantilal Shah]]
|24 December 2009 &ndash; 25 June 2010
|-
!35
|Shri [[Jai Narayan Patel]]
|2010 &ndash; 4 October 2012
|-
!36
|Shri [[Arun Kumar Mishra]]
|14 December 2012 &ndash; 6 July 2014
|-
!37
|Smt. [[Manjula Chellur]]
|5 August 2014 &ndash; 21 August 2016
|-
!38
|Shri [[Girish Chandra Gupta]]
|21 September 2016 &ndash; 30 November 2016
|-
!39
|Shri [[Jyotirmay Bhattacharya]]
|1 May 2018 &ndash; 24 September 2018
|-
!40
|Shri [[Debasish Kar Gupta]]
|30 October 2018 – 31 December 2018
|-
!41
|Shri [[Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan]]
|4 April 2019 — 28 April 2021
|-
!42
|Shri [[Prakash Shrivastava]] 
|11 October 2021 — 30 March 2023
|-
!43
| Shri [[T. S. Sivagnanam]]
|11 May 2023 — ''Incumbent''
|}

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

'''Judges Elevated to the Supreme Court of India-'''
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Sr. No
!Name of the Judge, Justice
!Date of Elevation
!Date of Retirement
!Parent High Court
|-
!1
|[[Aniruddha Bose]]
|24 May 2019
|10 April 2024
|Calcutta
|-
!2
|[[Dipankar Datta]]
|12 December 2022
|8 February 2030
|Calcutta
|-
!3
|[[Joymalya Bagchi]]
|17 March 2025
|NIL
|Calcutta
|}
'''Judges Transferred/Elevated from the Calcutta High Court-'''
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!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 [[Sikkim High Court]]
|-
!2
|[[Sanjib Banerjee]]
|BAR
|22 June 2006
|1 November 2023
|[[Chief Justice]] of [[Meghalaya 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, Ypres|Cloth Hall]] at [[Ypres]], [[Belgium]].<ref name="auto"/>
In 1977 another building named High Court Centenary Building or annexed building was inaugurated to reduce the pressure.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://calcuttahighcourt.nic.in/district_courts/citysessions.htm|title=CITY SESSIONS COURT, CALCUTTA|last=HISTORICAL BACKGROUND|website=calcuttahighcourt.nic.in|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209100032/http://calcuttahighcourt.nic.in/district_courts/citysessions.htm|archive-date=9 February 2012|url-status=dead|access-date=3 March 2017|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

==Connectivity==
===Rails===
[[Eden Gardens railway station]] is the nearest railway station, which is 650 meters away from the court. [[Esplanade metro station]], the nearest rapid rail transit is 1.3&nbsp;km away.{{Need Citation|date=September 2024}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Calcutta High Court}}
* [https://www.calcuttahighcourt.gov.in/ Official website]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070306142046/http://calcuttahighcourt.nic.in/ Former official website] (archived 6 March 2007)
* [http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/lyr2003/roct2003/30102003/r301020036.html Judge strength in High Courts increased]

{{High courts of India}}
{{Tourist attractions in Kolkata}}
{{Kolkata topics}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Organisations based in Kolkata]]
[[Category:Tourist attractions in Kolkata]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Kolkata]]
[[Category:Gothic Revival architecture in India]]
[[Category:1862 establishments in India]]
[[Category:Legal history of India]]
[[Category:Calcutta High Court| ]]
[[Category:Judiciary of India]]
[[Category:Courts and tribunals established in 1862]]