Madras High Court to get two new court halls from tomorrow

Registry has been converting the judges’ chambers in the heritage building into court halls

The Madras High Court is all set to get two new court halls when it reopens after a month long summer vacation on Monday. Three judges’ chambers in the 129-year-old heritage building have been vacated and converted into two court halls, one for accommodating a Division Bench and another for a single judge.

A Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq would be presiding over the proceedings in the new court hall numbered as 7 and the latter would be holding proceedings as a single judge, whenever the Division Bench does not sit, in the second smaller court hall that had been numbered as 7A.

At present, the High Court has 48 halls with nearly half of them functioning from the heritage building and the rest from the annexe building that was constructed primarily for administrative purposes. Since the sanctioned strength of the judges of the High Court rose to 75, the need for court halls too increased.

Therefore, the administration began to shift the judges’ chambers from the heritage building to the annexe building and convert those chambers into court halls. While doing so, every care was taken to ensure that the appearance of the court halls matched the traditional grandeur though the size of the some of the halls could not be increased.

At present, the court halls were functioning only on the ground and first floor of the heritage building. The second floor continued to have chambers for some judges and also for the office of the Advocate General. Similarly, the Additional Solicitor General too had been provided with chambers at the ground floor of the heritage building.

Only court halls 1 and 2, occupied by the Chief Justice and the next senior most judge of the High Court, had chambers attached to them. The chambers for the rest of the judges were located away from the court halls.