A section of lawyers and law students from Madurai and Chennai have planned to jointly revive their agitation from September 1 demanding notification of Tamil as the official language of 153-year-old Madras High Court besides renaming it as Tamil Nadu High Court.
Advocate G. Bhagavath Singh, coordinator of a committee formed for the purpose, said that a series of agitations and protests have been planned in Chennai from next month since the Centre as well as the Supreme Court had not acted upon the demands despite several requests.
However, S. Srinivasa Raghavan, a lawyer practising in the High Court Bench here, pointed out that a change in the name of the High Court would require an amendment to the Letters Patent, a colonial charter under which the High Court was established and which continues to be in operation till date.
According to the sixth edition of ‘MLJ’s Madras High Court Letters Patent, Appellate and Original Side Rules’ edited by Barrister-at-Law Ramakrishnan Viraraghavan, Queen Victoria had issued the Letters Patent (an open letter) for establishment of the ‘High Court of Judicature at Madras’ on June 26, 1862.
The Letters Patent was issued after the enactment of the Charter Act of 1861 and it provided for abolition of the then Supreme Court of Madras. It also underwent substantial amendments on December 28, 1865 and remains in operation in view of Article 372 (continuance of existing laws) of the Constitution.
Though most of the 42 clauses in the Letters Patent had become either obsolete or void after the promulgation of the Constitution, 18 clauses continue to survive and determine many of the legal procedures and practices followed by the Madras High Court.
Hence, a writ petition was filed before the Madras High Court in 1988 to declare the entire Letters Patent as null and void but a Division Bench comprising Justices S.J. Mukhopadhaya and N. Paul Vasanthakumar dismissed the petition on December 10, 2007, as devoid of merits.
“It is neither desirable nor is this Court competent to declare its original establishment and constitution as illegal… a person cannot challenge the constitution of a court before the same court, though it may be challenged before a higher Court, if so permissible,” the Division Bench said.
It also made clear that the surviving clauses of the Letters Patent, being not inconsistent with any provision of the Constitution, shall continue till they were amended or superseded by another law.
“Therefore, as the law stands today, the name Madras High Court can be changed to Tamil Nadu High Court only if Parliament amends the Letters Patent which expressly states that the institution should be called High Court of Judicature at Madras.
“That is exactly why the High Court refers to itself even in Tamil as ‘Madras Uyar Neethimandram’ and not Chennai Uyar Neethimandram,” Mr. Srinivasa Raghavan pointed out.
“Name can be changed only if Parliament amends the Letters Patent which states that the institution should be called High Court of Judicature at Madras”
