Attara Kacheri has an interesting history to tell

Attara Kacheri has an interesting history to tell
HC GOLDEN JUBILEE
Vijay Times

Bangalore: Grand plans for the Golden J ubilee celebrations of the Karnataka High Court have announced. Starting today , Vijay T imes will run weekly three-part series on the past, present and future of the High Court. The second part of the series will appear next Saturday .

Housed in the famous Attara Kacheri, this institution has an interesting history to tell. AttaraKacheri means "eighteen offices" or departments.

In 1864, Commissioner Bowring conceived and prepared the plans for setting up a fullfledged secretariat building, almost a century before the Vidhana Soudha was even thought of. The Attara Kacheri building was completed in 1868 at a cost of Rs 4.5 lakh. The work on the building was exe by Rai Bahadur Arcot Narayanaswamy M udaliar It is an impressive two-storied building of and brick, red in colour and has been built in the Greco-Roman style.

Earlier known as the Old Public Offices, it used to house the general revenue, secretariat an other offices of the State government includ the judiciary .

The High Court of the then State of Mysore was established in 1864 under the M ysore High Court Act, 1864, and was kno wn as the Mysore Hi Court until 1973 when the name of the stat changed.

This was close on the heels of establishing High Courts in India by the British via the ’Indian Hig Court Act’ of 1861, which vested in H er M the Queen of England to issue letters patent unde the Great Seal of the U nited Kingdom to erect and establish High Courts of Calcutta, Madras an Bombay . Since then, the legislations made b y the governments have been being interpreted in t building.

The Mysore High Court’s jurisdiction got extended on Nove 1 ,1956 when many areas integrated with Mysore to form the new stat Mysore, under the States Re-organisation Act which drew up new states on linguistic basis.

Another story goes that the Attara Kacheri built by T ipu S ultan. His offices included 18 d ments of revenue and general secretariat that grew to such a size during his reign that it c accommodated in his palace. So he constructe new building and named it Attara Kacheri. T echnology has sure gone a long way . Seni Counsel Pramila Nesargi says, when she start practice in the late 50s, the scenario was different. There were only 9 court halls with hardly ernment pleaders apart from an AG and an S There are 36 court halls now . Stenographers used Remington typewriters, which has been replace by computers. There were no policemen posted at all in the High Court, unlike now when there are a least two policemen stationed in each court Public Interest Litigations, which are filed dozen these days, were then unheard of.