The High Court is 50

It has been a strong seat of justice for the past five decades and has had top legal luminaries associated with it. As the Punjab and Haryana High Court celebrates its golden jubilee, Maneesh Chhibber recalls some of the high points in its history.

SURROUNDED by the world-famous Rock Garden on the one side and the Vidhan Sabhas of Punjab and Haryana on the other, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stands tall, literally as well as figuratively.

Having seen some of the best brains of the country lock horns over various legal issues in the past five decades, the High Court has certainly come a long way, since March 19, 1955, the day the then Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, pushed a button to electronically inaugurate the building in the presence of a plethora of VVIPs.

Incidentally, the Punjab High Court, as it was then known, had actually started functioning from the newly constructed building by January 15, 1955. The formal inauguration ceremony was performed in March as Nehru could not spare time earlier.

The High Court held its first sitting on January 15, 1955, in Chandigarh at the end of its winter vacation. Before that, it functioned from Shimla.

It finally got its present name – Punjab and Haryana High Court – on November 1, 1966, the day Haryana was carved out from Punjab.

The original building, designed by Chandigarh’s planner Le Corbusier, had eight courtrooms. It was constructed by Hindustan Construction Company. At present, the High Court has 40 courtrooms and three Bar rooms.

Among the 400-odd privileged invitees for the inaugural function, there were only seven judges, including the Chief Justice, and some 50 lawyers. Out of the seven judges, four, including Chief Justice A.N. Bhandari, came from the Indian Civil Service (ICS), while two had done their Bar-at-Law from the UK.

Two of the seven judges were based in Delhi, where a circuit Bench was functional.

In contrast, there is only one Bar-at-Law among the present judges of the High Court. While the sanctioned strength of judges has gone up to 53, of which 38 are permanent and 15 additional, the number of lawyers practising here is over 5000.

Old-timers recall how the judges actually walked to the High Court as it had, at that time, only one car, which was used by the Chief Justice. Eminent lawyer A.N. Grover was among the handful of lawyers who owned a car.

Now, if one wants to see the latest cars and SUVs at one place, the High Court is the place to visit. Be it a costly Merc or a foreign-made SUV, lawyers in the High Court have them aplenty.

"As opposed to the present times, judges and lawyers then were not too busy. The workload increased only after the Pepsu High Court merged with the Punjab High Court," recalls senior advocate Hira Lal Sibal, who has only recently stopped practice after 67 years.

He is one of the few surviving lawyers who participated in the 1955 inaugural function.

The High Court has the distinction of having three of its judges become Chief Justices of India. They are Justices S.M. Sikri, M.M. Punchhi and A.S. Anand. The number is actually four if one includes Justice Mehar Chand Mahajan, a Judge at Shimla, who became Judge of the Federal Court — as the Supreme Court of India was known in the pre-Independence days. He later became the CJI.

Legal luminaries recall how the High Court judges did not succumb to pressure during the Emergency.

"Our High Court set aside a large number of illegal detentions of political opponents of the ruling party leaders. In fact, one of the most active judges during the Emergency, Justice A.D. Kaushal, was even transferred to Tamil Nadu. Later, he became a judge of the Supreme Court," recalls senior lawyer Manmohan Lal Sarin, who attended the inauguration ceremony as an eight-year-old boy.

Senior advocate Harbhagwan Singh, who started practising at the Punjab High Court from November 1, 1956, recalls that the High Court had very few arrears of cases. "There was a lot of interaction between the judges and the lawyers. Also, since there was little work, we learnt a lot from the judges," Harbhagwan Singh notes.

Incidentally, the strength of the Judges went up to 13 after the merger of Pepsu with Punjab.

"I have been to many High Courts and the Supreme Court. But, the kind of things that I learnt while practising in the Punjab and Haryana High Court have no parallel," remarks advocate N.S. Boparai, a relatively recent entrant to the legal field.

A unique aspect about the building inaugurated by Nehru was the huge, handwoven tapestries that hung in each courtroom. The tapestries were designed by Le Corbusier. After the inaugural ceremony, Nehru had requested Corbusier to "spare some time" to explain the design and architecture of the building.

From Lahore to Chandigarh Justice A.N. Bhandari, the first Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court  IN pre-Independence days, the region was under the jurisdiction of the High Court of Judicature at Lahore. It was the court of record. In fact, the High Court at Lahore replaced the Chief Court of Punjab, which functioned for about 53 years prior to March 20, 1919. However, the Lahore High Court did not have any original civil jurisdiction and also could not issue writs, except habeas corpus writs. After Independence, the East Punjab High Court of Judicature was established at Shimla on August 15, 1947. After the Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950, the East Punjab High Court of Judicature was re-christened Punjab High Court. Inclement weather forced the powers-that-be to decide to shift the Punjab High Court to Chandigarh from January 15, 1955. The first Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court at Chandigarh was Justice A.N. Bhandari. On the merger of Pepsu state with Punjab, its High Court also merged with the Punjab High Court. All judges of the Pepsu High Court also became judges of the Punjab High Court. Till October 31, 1966, the Punjab and Haryana High Court continued to have jurisdiction over Delhi. Thereafter, the Delhi High Court came into being. On November 1, 1966, the Punjab High Court was re-named Punjab and Haryana High Court as the state of Haryana was carved out from Punjab.

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