There was a move from Central government sometime in January 2015 for renaming Bombay High Court and Madras High Court after long years of renaming these cities as Mumbai and Chennai. But till now change is not affected. Even Calcutta High Court is to be renamed as Kolkatta High Court.
It is significant that except for these three High Courts at Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata respectively, 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, these three 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 renaming Bombay, Madras and Calcutta High Courts now as Maharashtra, Tamilnadu and West-Bengal High Courts respectively to bring uniformity in system of naming 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 legislation.
MADHU AGRAWAL