Karnataka High Court

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High Court of Karnataka
ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಉಚ್ಚ ನ್ಯಾಯಾಲಯ
File:Logo of Karnataka High Court.png
Emblem of the court
Established1884 (140 years ago) (1884)
LocationPrincipal bench
(main bench)
Additional benches
Coordinates12°58′40″N 77°35′33″E / 12.9779°N 77.5926°E / 12.9779; 77.5926Coordinates: 12°58′40″N 77°35′33″E / 12.9779°N 77.5926°E / 12.9779; 77.5926
Composition methodPresidential appointment on advice of the Chief Justice of India and the Governor of Karnataka.
Authorized byConstitution of India
Judge term lengthMandatory retirement at age 62
Number of positions62
LanguageKannada, English
Websitekarnatakajudiciary.kar.nic.in
Chief Justice
CurrentlySatish Chandra Sharma (Acting)
Since31 August 2021

The High Court of Karnataka (IAST: Karnātaka Ucca Nyāyālaya, commonly called the Karnataka High Court) is the High Court of the Indian state of Karnataka and thus its highest judicial authority. The court's principal bench is located in Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka, with additional benches in Hubli-Dharwad and Gulbarga. It was previously called the High Court of Mysore. In Bangalore, the High Court functions out of a red-painted brick building known as the Attara Kacheri, located opposite the Vidhana Soudha, the seat of the legislature of Karnataka.

Composition[edit]

The High Court is composed of the Chief Justice of Karnataka and other judges. Judges are appointed by the President of India.[1] As of December 2020, there are 46 judges in the High Court,[2] out of a sanctioned maximum strength of 62.[3] Abhay Shreeniwas Oka is the Chief Justice since May 10, 2019.[4]

Powers and jurisdiction[edit]

The High Court is the highest judicial authority within the State of Karnataka. It has superintendence over all courts and tribunals, such as district courts, operating within Karnataka, except those of the armed forces.[5][6] Appeals against judgements of lower courts, such as district-level civil and sessions courts, are heard in the High Court. Appeals against judgements of the High Court are heard by the Supreme Court of India.

The High Court is a court of record and can prosecute for contempt of itself.[7]

Premises[edit]

Rear facade of Attara Kacheri, the Bangalore seat of the Court's principal bench
Attara Kacheri, the Bangalore seat of the Court's principal bench

The High Court's principal bench is located in Bangalore, in a building called the Attara Kacheri. It is a wide two-storied building of stone and brick, painted red, in the neoclassical style of architecture. It was constructed between 1864 and 1868.[8]

There was a proposal to demolish this building in the year 1982.[9] A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the High Court pleading to stop the demolition. This was the first PIL to be filed in the court, and the case was heard in the same building that was supposed to be demolished.[10] The petition was struck down by the High Court, but the proposal to demolish the building was dropped in 1985 when the Supreme Court asked the state government to reconsider demolition.

Notable judges[edit]

Four judges of the court, E. S. Venkataramiah, M. N. Venkatachaliah, S. Rajendra Babu and H.L. Dattu, went on to become Chief Justices of India[11] and others including Kalmanje Jagannatha Shetty, N. Venkatachala, R. V. Raveendran, Shivaraj Patil, Venkate Gopala Gowda, Mohan Shantanagoudar and S. Abdul Nazeer were appointed as judges in the Supreme Court of India.[12]

Chief Justices[edit]

P Mahadevayya, M Sadasivayya, Nittoor Srinivasa Rau, Sam Piroj Bharucha and G. T. Nanavati were some notable Chief Justices who presided over this court.

List of former Chief Justices[edit]

High Court of Mysore
N Chief Justice Term
1 Charles George Plumer 1884 – July 1890
2 Sir T. R. A. Thumboo Chetty July 1890 – 4 November 1895
3 James William Best 4 November 1895 – 1907
4 Stanley Ismay 1908–1912
5 P. Mahadevayya 1931–1934
High Court of Karnataka
# Chief Justice Term
1 R.Venkataramaiah 1 November 1956 – 16 July 1957
2 S. R. Das Gupta 25 July 1957 – 13 August 1961
3 Nittoor Srinivasa Rau 29 March 1962 – 7 August 1963
4 H. Hombe Gowda 20 January 1964 – 1 August 1969
5 A. R. Somanath Iyer 1 August 1969 – 30 August 1969
6 M. Sadasivayya 31 August 1969 – 23 October 1969
(5) A. R. Somanath Iyer 23 October 1969 – 29 December 1969
(6) M. Sadasivayya 30 December 1969 – 16 September 1970
7 A. Narayana Pai 17 September 1970 – 6 June 1973
8 G. K. Govinda Bhat 7 June 1973 – 14 December 1977
9 D. M. Chandrashekar 22 March 1978 – 25 September 1982
10 K. Bhimaiah 25 September 1982 – 10 April 1983
11 V. S. Malimath 6 February 1984 – 24 October 1985
12 Kalmanje Jagannatha Shetty 24 October 1985 – 27 August 1986
13 Prem Chand Jain 28 August 1986 – 16 September 1989
14 S. Mohan 26 October 1989 – 7 October 1991
15 S. P. Bharucha 1 January 1991 – 30 June 1992
16 S. B. Majumdar 2 July 1993 – 13 September 1994
17 G. T. Nanavati 28 September 1994 – 4 March 1995
18 M. L. Pendse 28 July 1995 – 25 March 1996
19 S. A. Hakeem 3 May 1996 – 9 May 1996
20 R. P. Sethi 29 June 1996 – 6 January 1999
21 Y. Bhaskar Rao 17 January 1999 – 27 June 2000
22 Ashok Bhan 27 June 2000 – 20 October 2000
23 P. V. Reddi 21 October 2000 – 16 August 2001
24 Nagendra Kumar Jain 31 August 2001 – 20 October 2004
25 N. K. Sodhi 19 November 2004 – 29 November 2005
26 Cyriac Joseph 7 January 2006 – 6 July 2008
27 P. D. Dinakaran 8 August 2008 – 7 August 2010
28 Jagdish Singh Khehar 8 August 2010 – 12 September 2011
29 Vikramajit Sen 24 December 2011 – 23 December 2012
30 K Shridhar Rao 24 December 2012 – March 2013
31 Dhirendra Hiralal Waghela March 2013 – 31 May 2015
32 Subhro Kamal Mukherjee 1 June 2015 – 9 October 2017
33 H. G. Ramesh ( 10 October 2017 – 11 February 2018
34 Dinesh Maheshwari 12 February 2018 – 17 January 2019
35 Lingappa Narayana Swamy 18 January 2019 – 9 May 2019
36 Abhay Shreeniwas Oka 10 May 2019 – 27 August 2021
Acting Satish Chandra Sharma 31 August 2021 - Incumbent

Judges[edit]

The current sitting judges of the court are as follows:[13]

Name Position From
Satish Chandra Sharma Acting Chief Justice 4 January 2021
Aravind Kumar Permanent Judge 26 June 2009
Alok Aradhe Permanent Judge 17 November 2018
S.Sujatha Permanent Judge 2 January 2015
B.Veerappa Permanent Judge 2 January 2015
G.Narendar Permanent Judge 2 January 2015
P.S.Dinesh Kumar Permanent Judge 2 January 2015
Pavankumar Bhimappa Bajantri Permanent Judge 17 November 2018
K. Somashekar Permanent Judge 14 November 2016
Kottravva Somappa Mudagal Permanent Judge 14 November 2016
Sreenivas Harish Kumar Permanent Judge 14 November 2016
Nangli Krishnarao Sudhindrarao Permanent Judge 21 February 2017
Hosur Bhujangaraya Prabhakara Sastry Permanent Judge 21 February 2017
Dixit Krishna Shripad Permanent Judge 14 February 2018
Shankar Ganapathi Pandit Permanent Judge 14 February 2018
R Devdas Permanent Judge 14 February 2018
Bhotanhosur Mallikarjuna Shyam Prasad Permanent Judge 14 February 2018
Siddappa Sunil Dutt Yadav Permanent Judge 14 February 2018
Mohammad Nawaz Permanent Judge 02 June 2018
Harekoppa Thimmana Gowda Narendra Prasad Permanent Judge 02 June 2018
Ashok Golappa Nijagannavar Permanent Judge 03 November 2018
Hethur Puttaswamygowda Sandesh Permanent Judge 03 November 2018
Krishnan Natarajan Permanent Judge 03 November 2018
S.R. Krishna Kumar Permanent Judge 23 September 2019
Suraj Govindaraj Permanent Judge 23 September 2019
Sachin Shankar Magadum Permanent Judge 23 September 2019
Neranahalli Srinivasan Sanjay Gowda Additional Judge 11 November 2019
Jyoti Mulimani Additional Judge 11 November 2019
Nataraj Rangaswamy Additional Judge 11 November 2019
Hemant Chandangoudar Additional Judge 11 November 2019
Pradeep Singh Yerur Additional Judge 11 November 2019
Maheshan Nagaprasanna Additional Judge 26 November 2019
Maralur Indrakumar Arun Additional Judge 07 January 2020
Engalaguppe Seetharamaiah Indiresh Additional Judge 07 January 2020
Ravi Venkappa Hosmani Additional Judge 07 January 2020
Savanur Vishwajith Shetty Additional Judge 28 April 2020
Shivashankar Amarannavar Additional Judge 04 May 2020
Makkimane Ganeshaiah Uma Additional Judge 04 May 2020
Vedavyasachar Srishananda Additional Judge 04 May 2020
Hanchate Sanjeevkumar Additional Judge 04 May 2020
Padmaraj Nemachandra Desai Additional Judge 04 May 2020
P Krishna Bhat Additional Judge 21 May 2020
M. G. Shukure Kamal Additional Judge 17 March 2021
Rajendra Badamikar Additional Judge 25 March 2021
Khazi Jaibunnisa Mohiuddin Additional Judge 25 March 2021

Additional Benches[edit]

Karnataka High court bench in Gulbarga.

The Karnataka High Court is currently functional in Bangalore, Dharwad and Gulbarga. There was a long-standing demand for an additional bench as the location of Bangalore in south-east corner of the state caused hardship for people visiting the High Court from the distant northern regions of the state. This issue led to agitation, including boycott of court proceedings by lawyers in the northern region. The demand was finally met in the year 2006 when it was decided that circuit benches of the High Court would be set up in Dharwad and Gulbarga.[14] The new branches were inaugurated on 4 and 5 July 2008, respectively. There was later demand to make both Dharwad and Gulbarga benches permanent. Consequently, Dharwad circuit bench became a permanent bench from 25 August 2013 and Gulbarga circuit bench became a permanent bench from 31 August 2013.

Controversies[edit]

In late 2002, 14 newspapers and periodicals reported that some judges from the High Court of Karnataka were allegedly involved in a sex scandal in Mysore. A high-level judicial inquiry committee was established by the Chief Justice. Later, the committee acquitted the judges as they could not find any substantive evidence.[15][16][17]

References[edit]

  1. Template:Cite constitution
  2. "High Court of Karnataka Official Web Site". karnatakajudiciary.kar.nic.in. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  3. "High Court sees highest number of judges at 43". The Hindu. 9 January 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2020. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  4. "Hon'ble Mr. Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka". karnatakajudiciary.kar.nic.in. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  5. Template:Cite constitution
  6. Template:Cite constitution
  7. Template:Cite constitution
  8. "Attara Kacheri: Building that housed 18 public departments made way for Karnataka High Court". The Economic Times. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  9. "When the axe was spared". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 18 April 2007. Archived from the original on 10 December 2007. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
  10. "The battle for Attara Kacheri". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 18 April 2006. Archived from the original on 12 September 2006. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
  11. "List of Judges of Karnataka who were appointed as Chief Justice of India". Online webpage of The High Court of Karnataka. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
  12. "List of Judges of Karnataka who were appointed as judges in the Supreme Court of India". Online webpage of The High Court of Karnataka. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
  13. High Court of Karnataka - Profile of sitting judges
  14. "Contracts signed for circuit Bench buildings". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 5 August 2006. Archived from the original on 29 November 2010. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
  15. "Mysore sex scandal: Media faces contempt case". The Times of India. India. 7 February 2003. Retrieved 7 February 2003.
  16. "Contempt proceedings against scribes stayed". The Tribune. Retrieved 5 May 2003.
  17. "Karnataka HC judges cleared in sex scandal". Rediff. Retrieved 2 February 2003.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]