Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William

Last updated

Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William
Old Fort William plate15.jpg
Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, c.1786
EstablishedOctober 22, 1774;250 years ago (1774-10-22)
Dissolved1862;163 years ago (1862)
Jurisdiction India
Location Calcutta, Bengal, British India
Authorised by Regulating Act of 1773
Appeals to Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
Judge term lengthLife tenure
Number of positions4 by statute

The Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Calcutta, was founded in 1774 by the Regulating Act 1773. It replaced the Mayor's Court of Calcutta and was British India's highest court from 1774 until 1862, when the High Court of Calcutta was established by the Indian High Courts Act 1861.

Contents

From 1774 to the arrival of Parliament's Bengal Judicature Act 1781 in June 1782, the Court claimed jurisdiction over any person residing in Bengal, Bihar or Orissa. These first years were known for their conflict with the Supreme Council of Bengal over the Court's jurisdiction. The conflict came to an end with Parliament's passing of the Bengal Judicature Act 1781 which restricted the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to either those who lived in Calcutta, or to any British subject in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, thereby removing the court's jurisdiction over any person residing in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

The courthouse itself was a two storied building with Ionic columns and an urn-topped balustrade and stood by the side of the Writers’ Buildings. The building also served as the Town Hall of Calcutta at one time. It was demolished in 1792 and replaced by the present building in 1832.

List

The court's first judges were


Chief JusticeTermNotes
Sir Elijah Impey [2] 16 March 17741791Recalled 1783
Sir Robert Chambers [2] 17911 Aug 1798previously Acting Chief Justice 1783–1791
Sir John Anstruther, Bt [2] 179822 Feb 1806
Sir Henry Russell [2] 18079 Nov 1813
Sir Edward Hyde East [2] 1813July 1822
Sir Robert Henry Blosset [2] 18221 Feb 1823(died in office)
Sir Christopher Puller [2] 182326 May 1824(died in office)
Sir Charles Grey [2] 18251832
Sir William O. Russell 22 Feb 18321833(died in office)
Sir Edward Ryan 18331842
Sir Lawrence Peel 18421855
Sir James William Colvile 18551859
Sir Barnes Peacock 18591862afterwards Chief Justice of the High Court of Calcutta

Justices

JusticesTermNotes
Stephen Caesar Le Maistre 22 October 17744 Nov 1777Died
John Hyde [2] 22 October 17748 July 1796Died
William Jones [2] 22 Oct 178327 Apr 1791Died
William Dunkin [2] 3 Sept 17911 Aug 1797Resigned
James Watson [2] 1 Mar 17962 May 1796Died
John Royds [2] 23 Oct 179726 Sept 1816Died
William Burroughs [2] 3 Nov 180620 Dec 1815Resigned
Francis Maonaghten [2] 1 Mar 18162 Mar 1825Resigned
Anthony Buller 26 Sept 18161 Jan 1827Resigned
John Franks 6 Oct 182515 Mar 1831Resigned
John Peter Grant [3] 17 Oct 18331848
Benjamin Heath Malkin 6 Oct 183521 Oct 1837Died

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elijah Impey</span> British judge

Sir Elijah Impey was a British judge who served as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, Chief Justice of the Sadr Diwani Adalat and Member of Parliament for New Romney.

Puisne judge and puisne justice are terms for an ordinary judge or a judge of lesser rank of a particular court. The term comes from a combination of the two French words, puis and (born) which have been combined as French: puisné or puîné; meaning "junior".

The High Court of Delhi is the high court in Delhi, India. It was established on 31 October 1966, through the Delhi High Court Act, 1966. Below it are 11 Subordinate Courts that oversee smaller judicial districts. The court gets its powers from Chapter V in Part VI of the Constitution of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calcutta High Court</span> High Court in West Bengal, India

The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It is located at Esplanade Row West, Kolkata, West Bengal. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court building's design is somewhat based on the Lakenhal in Ypres in Flanders, Belgium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orissa High Court</span> High Court for the state of Odisha

The Odisha High Court is the High Court for the Indian state of Odisha.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patna High Court</span> High Court of Patna

The High Court of Judicature at Patna is the High Court of the state of Bihar. It was established on 3 February 1916 by British colonial government and was later affiliated under the Government of India Act 1915, making it one of the oldest High Courts of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supreme Court of Singapore</span> National supreme court

The Supreme Court of Singapore is a set of courts in Singapore, comprising the Court of Appeal and the High Court. It hears both civil and criminal matters. The Court of Appeal hears both civil and criminal appeals from the High Court. The Court of Appeal may also decide a point of law reserved for its decision by the High Court, as well as any point of law of public interest arising in the course of an appeal from a court subordinate to the High Court, which has been reserved by the High Court for decision of the Court of Appeal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Chambers (English judge)</span> English jurist

Sir Robert Chambers was an English jurist, Vinerian Professor of English Law, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Court of Malaysia</span> Highest court of appeals in Malaysia

The Federal Court of Malaysia is the highest court and the final appellate court in Malaysia. It is housed in the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya. The court was established during Malaya's independence in 1957 and received its current name in 1994.

Sir William Robert Burkitt was an Irish judge in British India in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Sir Henry Russell, 1st Baronet was a British lawyer. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1816, during the reign of George III. The Russell baronetcy of Swallowfield in Berkshire, was created in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom on 10 December 1812 for him. Russell was the Chief Justice of Bengal.

The Supreme Court of Judicature of Belize is one of three types of courts in Belize, the lower ones being the Magistrate's Courts and the Court of Appeal. It is a court of original jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases as well as an appellate court. It is governed by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (SCJA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asok Kumar Ganguly</span> Indian jurist (born 1947)

Asok Kumar Ganguly is an Indian jurist. He served as the chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission and as a judge of the Supreme Court of India who delivered judgements in some high-profile cases like the 2G spectrum case.

The New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the United Kingdom and British Empire. They were announced on 31 December 1926.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hyde (judge)</span> British judge in Bengal (1738–1796)

John Hyde was a Puisne Judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal from 1774 to his death. He is the primary author of Hyde's Notebooks, a series of 74 notebooks that are a trove of information for the first years of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, the highest court in Bengal from 1774 to 1862. The originals of these are kept at the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata. Partial microfilms are held at the National Library of India, Kolkata. The digitized microfilm is available online. The originals, which vary slightly from the microfilm, were digitized in 2015 but are not yet released.

The Supreme Council of Bengal, also known as Council of Four, was the highest level of executive government in British India from 1774 to 1833: the period in which the East India Company, a private company, exercised political control of British colonies in India. It was formally subordinate to both the East India Company's Court of Directors and to the British Crown.

The New Year Honours 1926 were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by members of the British Empire. They were published on 29 December 1925.

The 1928 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the United Kingdom and British Empire. They were announced on 30 December 1927.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madras High Court</span> High court in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu

The High Court of Judicature at Madras is a High Court located in Chennai, India. It has appellate jurisdiction over the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is one of the oldest high courts of India along with Calcutta High Court in Kolkata and Bombay High Court in Mumbai. The Madras High Court is one of four charter high courts of colonial India established in the four Presidency Towns of Madras, Bombay, Allahabad and Calcutta by letters patent granted by Queen Victoria, dated 26 June 1862. It exercises original jurisdiction over the city of Chennai, as well as extraordinary original jurisdiction, civil and criminal, under the letters patent and special original jurisdiction for the issue of writs under the Constitution of India. Covering 107 acres, the court complex is one of the largest in the world, second only to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The four-storey administrative building serves hundreds of litigants every day.

References

  1. Curley, Thomas M. (1998). Sir Robert Chambers: Law, Literature, and Empire in the Age of Johnson . University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN   0299151506.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Auber, Peter. An Analysis of the Constitution of the East-India Company. p. 758.
  3. Stearn, Roger T. (2004). "Grant, Sir John Peter, of Rothiemurchus (1774–1848), politician and judge" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11273 . Retrieved 3 February 2021.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)