The High Court of Kerala: the courts it replaced and its reach over Lakshadweep

Background

The High Court of Kerala came into being on November 1, 1956, the day the State of Kerala itself was formed, as the immediate successor of the Travancore-Cochin High Court.
Its line runs back to the High Court of Travancore, established in 1887, to the Court of Appeal in Cochin, and to the Madras High Court, under whose jurisdiction the Malabar region then lay.
The court was inaugurated at Kochi on November 5, 1956 at Ram Mohan Palace, and Justice KT Koshi, the last Chief Justice of the High Court of Thiru-Kochi, became the first Chief Justice of Kerala.
It sat at Ram Mohan Palace for 50 years, until it was moved to its current home in 2006.
Its authority does not stop at the State border. The district court and courts subordinate to it in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep are under the supervision of the High Court of Kerala.
The court has held that, by virtue of Article 235 of the Constitution, the High Court of Kerala has got the power to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the presiding officers of those courts in the Lakshadweep Islands.
Justice Anna Chandy of this court was the first woman judge to a High Court, and Justice M.Fathima Beevi, who also served here, became the first woman judge in the Supreme Court.