The election season may have broken out in a rash of name changes involving cities and districts, but the high courts of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras may have to wait a while yet.
A bill that sought to rename these three high courts to bring them up to date with the long-revised nomenclatures of their cities had run into trouble two years ago, necessitating the introduction of a fresh one in Parliament.
A senior law ministry official has now said that “no forward movement” has been made on the matter and that the fresh bill is unlikely to be introduced during the upcoming winter session of parliament, beginning December 11.
The High Court (Alteration of Names) Bill, 2016, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 19, 2016, to rename the trio as the High Courts of Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai.
But the Tamil Nadu government subsequently asked the Centre to rename Madras High Court as the High Court of Tamil Nadu. Also, while the Bengal government was keen on the switch to Kolkata High Court, Calcutta High Court itself had “not agreed for revised nomenclature”.
Bombay had become Mumbai in 1995; Madras changed its name to Chennai in 1996; and Calcutta turned into Kolkata in 2001.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha in December 2016, junior law minister P.P. Chaudhary had said a new bill would be introduced.
“The central government has sought views from the state governments concerned and the respective high courts for finalising a fresh bill. No time frame can be fixed for finalising of the fresh bill and its introduction in Parliament,” he had said.
Calcutta High Court, which opened on July 1, 1862, is India’s oldest high court. Bombay High Court was inaugurated on August 14, 1862, and Madras High Court was born around the same time.
Outside the hallowed precincts of Parliament and the high courts, however, the name game flourishes unabated, especially in Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh.
Allahabad city and Faizabad district have already been renamed as Prayagraj and Ayodhya. Now there are calls to rename Azamgarh as Aryamgarh, Aligarh as Harigarh, and Muzaffarnagar as Laxminagar. Gujarat is considering renaming Ahmedabad as Karnavati.
The Union home ministry is grappling with 48 pending requests from the states to approve name changes for villages, towns and districts, officials have said.
