Rename Madras High Court as Tamil Nadu High Court: Tamil Nadu Government

Moving the resolution, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa recalled that the Tamil Nadu Assembly adopted a resolution on July 19, 1967 seeking to rename Madras as Tamil Nadu. After Parliament passed the Act in 1968, the State was called Tamil Nadu from January 14, 1969. Listing out the historical reasons behind the name of Madras High Court, Jayalalithaa said the British Parliament had enacted the Indian High Courts Act, 1861 and Letters Patent was granted by Queen Victoria under which the Madras High Court was established in 1862. 

Later, the resolution was adopted unanimously in the House. “It will be inappropriate to name it as Chennai High Court and naming the High Court of Judicature at Madras as Tamil Nadu High Court will be most appropriate and hence this House urges the Union government to alter the name from Chennai HC, proposed in the Bill introduced in Parliament to Tamil Nadu HC,” the resolution said. Justifying the change, the resolution pointed out that the High Courts situated in other states take the names of their respective states, which were formed on linguistic basis in 1956. It said it would be “inappropriate to call the High Court with jurisdiction over entire Tamil Nadu as Chennai High Court and a bench of the High Court is also functioning from Madurai. “The name of Madras was changed to Chennai through a legislation in 1996 and according to it, Chennai only refers to the city of Chennai,” it said. 

The Centre had introduced ‘High Courts (Alteration of Names) Bill, 2016’ in Lok Sabha on July 19, according to which Madras High Court will be called Chennai High Court from the date appointed by the Act, the resolution said.