Two decades after the city of ‘Madras’ became ‘Chennai’ and ‘Bombay’ became ‘Mumbai’, the High Courts in both the cities will finally adopt the names by an act of Parliament during the coming monsoon session.
The Law Ministry has prepared a Cabinet note on a Bill changing the names of the High Courts.
According to senior Ministry sources, not only the State governments but also the High Courts have to concur with the name change as it involves technical issues regarding statute books and the fact that the courts, especially the three presidency courts of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, were established under the Indian High Court Act of 1861.
“We have received concurrence from both the State governments and the two courts. We had earlier thought that vesting the President of India with the powers to change the names of the high courts through an executive order would simplify matters, but that did not seem feasible. Therefore, in the last six months, we have drafted a Bill that changes the name of these two high courts,” a Law Ministry source said.
The third presidency High Court in Calcutta, however, will have to wait awhile for its own name change to ‘Kolkata High Court’ as the court is yet to give its concurrence. “The West Bengal government has asked for a name change but the honourable high court has not responded to our letters yet. We have been told that it could be discussed at a full court meeting after the vacation,” an official said.
The matter is not expected to end with the three. With the change in the official spelling of ‘Odisha’ from ‘Orissa’, there have been demands that the State’s high court too changed its name, which still goes by the old spelling.
Biju Janata Dal MP Bhratruhari Mahtab told The Hindu that he had written to Union Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda seeking a change in the spelling. “I had been informed that the government was going to go in for a remedy that may require only an executive action rather than a Bill to effect the change in the names of high courts. However, now it seems it will be on a case-to-case basis through Bills. We hope that the government looks at our case as well,” he said.
The government is also waiting for the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments to sort out the relocation of the high court of one the two States to take a decision on the matter.
“As of now, it is the high court of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and we are waiting for further word from both the governments,” a law ministry official said.
