Before electricity came to India, a manually operated cloth fan would have swung from the ceiling of the courtroom; the periwigged judge would have pored over papers in the glimmer of candles, signing his orders with a feathered pen dipped in ink. Piecing together the 150-year-old history of judiciary in the erstwhile Bombay Presidency, through artefacts and other narrative aids, the ‘Permanent Judicial Museum’ at the Bombay High Court is a tour into antiquity.
Housed in a small room on the ground floor of the High Court, the museum chronicles the evolution of the British legal system in Mumbai.
“Yes, the museum has a Raj flavour, mainly because of the artefacts available,” says the museum’s curator Rajan Jayakar. A judicious mix of plain text narrative with photographs, photo prints, original documents and antiques, recounts the birth and expansion of courts in Bombay, culminating in the Gothic style heritage building of the present day High Court.
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The museum’s centrepiece is the model of a courtroom at the turn of the 19th Century, complete in every detail with the judge’s chair on the dais, mace, footrest, candle stands, ‘handi’ lights (placed in a bell shaped jar), an elevated writing stand, a rostrum, chairs, old-style book cupboards, manually operated fans and a steno’s typewriter. The material for this was partly sourced from Mr. Jayakar’s personal collection, partly from Mumbai’s Chor Bazaar and partly from the High Court. A discerning visitor has, however, pointed out in the visitor’s book the absence of a witness box.
“The witness box would have occupied more space. The courtroom of 1900 is recreated from an artist’s impression, just before the time electricity came to India. The period after is represented by four fans with wooden blades, which I found in the Chor Bazaar,” Mr. Jayakar said.
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To his surprise, at the flea market, he also found a perfectly fitting bracket for a cannon, recovered from the High Court complex after it was discarded during the demolition of the old Bombay Fort in 1864.
The Bombay High Court was established following the Charter of Queen Victoria dated June 26, 1862 and inaugurated on August 14 the same year. Four of the seven original Royal Charters for setting up courts in the Bombay Presidency were displayed when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the museum on February 14 this year. They have been replaced with replicas.
Among the original documents showcased are Barrister Certificates issued to M.K. Gandhi, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, K.M. Munshi and other luminaries.
Mr. Jayakar, who curated exhibitions in 1987 and 2012 for the High Court’s 125th and 150th anniversaries respectively, initially faced resistance to dedicating one courtroom for the purpose. But Chief Justice [of Bombay High Court] Mohit Shah supported the idea.