Indian cities Bombay, Madras, Allahabad have since been renamed as Mumbai, Chennai and Prayag respectively long time back. But High Courts located in these cities are still officially named after old names of these cities. System should be that names of High Courts may get auto-changed with change in names of cities.
It is significant that except for some High Courts, all other High Courts are named after states of their jurisdiction. An RTI response had revealed that while all the High Courts constituted after independence were named after respective main states of jurisdiction, High Courts constituted by British regime in pre-independence era continue to be named as per British legacy on basis of cities of their existence even after 70 long years of independence.
Union government should end the British legacy by naming all High Courts after names of states rather than on particular cities. Proposed legislation should incorporate feature that names of High Courts may be automatically changed with change in name of states or cities without needing any separate legislation.
MADHU AGRAWAL