One of the oldest High Courts in the country is the Bombay High Court. Its contract was issued on June 26, 1862 and was inaugurated in the same year on August 14. Apart from the Bombay Bench, it also has benches at Panaji, Nagpur and Aurangabad. It can also hear the appeals and review the decisions of the lower courts over the State of Goa, Maharashtra, Union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. In 1995, the name Bombay was changed to Mumbai; however, being an institution it remained as the Bombay High Court.
Bombay High Court held its first sitting in the present building on January 10, 1879. It was designed by an English engineer Col. J.A. Fuller, who started on this project from April 1871. It was completed in November 1878. The architecture of the building is early English-Gothic.
Bombay High Court is 562 feet in length and 187 feet in breadth. The sculpture of this court is outstanding. It consists of the heads of wolves and foxes on the western corridors and in the corners of the wall respectively. The first and second floor of the building consists of the sculpture of a monkey-judge holding the scales of justice unevenly. Its one eye is covered with a bandage. The Goddess of Justice; a stone statue is present on the western front of the High Court building.
Bombay High Court handles both civil and criminal cases. It has a sanctioned strength of 75 Judges. The ratio of judges to people is 1:1.61 million. At present the Chief justice of Bombay High Court is Justice Sawanter Kumar.
The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court was established in 1982 that includes Jalgaon, Beed, Aurangabad, Jalna, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Ahmednagar, Latur and Dhule under its judicature. This bench has more than 12 judges and 700 advocates. It also has a Bar council of Goa and Maharashtra office. The Nagpur bench deals with the issues from Vidarbha and Saurashtra districts. Its Goa and the Union territory benches were inaugurated in 1982.
It keeps all the case study along with the judgments of all cases after 2006 on its official website that is, on bombayhighcourt.nic.in.
