Jurisdiction and seat of the High Courts: the three presidency courts, the Kerala High Court at Kochi and the newest entries

Background

The Supreme Court of India publishes a table headed “JURISDICTION AND SEAT OF HIGH COURTS”, listing each High Court against its Year of Establishment, Territorial Jurisdiction and Principal Seat & Bench. The earliest year in the table is 1862, shared by the Bombay High Court at Mumbai, the Calcutta High Court at Kolkata and the Madras High Court at Chennai, followed by the Allahabad High Court of 1866, whose entry reads Principal Seat : Prayagraj with a Bench : Lucknow. The Kerala High Court appears with the year 1956, the seat Kochi and the territorial jurisdiction Kerala, Lakshadweep, Lakshadweep being a Union Territory. The Guwahati High Court of 1948 has its principal seat at Guwahati and Other Benches : Kohima, Aizawl, and Itanagar, its territorial jurisdiction covering Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. The Punjab & Haryana High Court of 1966 sits at Chandigarh for Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh. The Gujarat High Court sits at Sola(Ahmedabad), the Rajasthan High Court has its Principal Seat : Jodhpur with a Bench : Jaipur, and the Bombay High Court has Other Benches : Panaji, Aurangabad, and Nagpur. The latest year in the table is 2019, shared by the Telangana High Court at Hyderabad, the Andhra Pradesh High Court and the entry for Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, where the table notes that after the bifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir into two Union Territories there is now a common High Court.