Karnataka High Court (Bangalore)

The Karnataka High Court is the High Court of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located in Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka. The High Court functions out of a red brick building known as Attara Kacheri. It is in front of Vidhana Soudha, which is the seat of the legislature of Karnataka.The Karnataka High Court is currently functional in Bangalore, Hubli-Dharwad and Gulbarga.

HISTORY

The history of the Karnataka High Court can be traced back to the year 1884, under the reign of the Maharaja of Mysore Chamarajendra Wadiyar, when the Chief Court of Mysore was reconstituted with three judges and was designated as the highest court of appeal in the princely State of Mysore.

Earlier The Court of the Chief Judge, Mysore, was set up in 1880 along with three other courts - the Court of District judges, the Bangalore Court of Small Causes and subordinate and Munsiff courts. The Bangalore Small Causes Court was abolished in 1881.

In 1930, it was renamed as the High Court of Mysore and the Chief Judge was given the new name of Chief Justice. In 1973, it got its present name of "Karnataka High Court".

PREMISES

The High Court is located in a building called as Attara Kacheri (meaning Eighteen offices). It is a two-storied building of stone and brick, painted red, in the Graeco-Roman style of architecture – a structure of vast expanse with Ionic porticoes at the center and at the two ends of the elevation. The construction of the building was supervised by Rao Bahadur Arcot Narayanaswami Mudaliar and completed in the year 1868. It was earlier named as Old Public Offices and got its name of Attara Kacheri when the eighteen departments in the general and revenue secretariat of the Mysore Government were shifted here from their crowded premises in Tipu Sultan's summer palace.Tipu's Palace was only a temporary house for the offices. When Bowring took over as Commissioner after Cubbon, he found the building unsuitable, both because of its state of maintenance as well as its limited accommodation which no longer sufficed for the much increased work of administering the State. It was he who conceived and prepared the plans for a full-fledged secretariat building in the city area. The construction was taken up in 1864 and completed at a cost of Rs. 4.5 lakhs in 1868.
There was a proposal to demolish this building in the year 1982.However, a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in order to save this old building from getting demolished. This was the first PIL to be filed in the Karnataka High court and the case was heard in the very building that was supposed to be demolished.In August 1984, the judges M. N. Venkatachaliah and Vittal Rao pronounced a judgement that stayed the demolition.

Vidhana Soudha

VIDHANA SOUDHA

Kengal Hanumanthaiah is credited with the conception and construction of the Vidhana Soudha.The foundation stone was laid by the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and then chief minister K.C Reddy, on July 13, 1951.However, it was Hanumanthaiah who was instrumental in the redesign and speedy construction of Vidhana Soudha. He visited Europe, Russia, the United States, and other places and got the idea of building the Vidhana Soudha by incorporating various designs from the buildings he had seen. It was completed in 1956. He took a lot of interest and effort in building this marvelous granite building. It was meant to dwarf the British-built Athara Kacheri (High Court) building.Hanumanthaiah was criticized for the nearly 15 million rupees spent to construct the building.But the building designed by him is an impressive structure of Neo Dravidian style. The land area is 60 acres.

Info Courtesy - Wikipedia

Basavanagudi (Bangalore)

Basavanagudi is a residential and commercial locality in the Indian city of Bangalore. It is located in South Bangalore, along the borders of Jayanagar. The name "Basavanagudi" refers to the Bull Temple, which contains a monolith statue of the Nandi Bull. The word Basava in Kannada means bull, and gudi means temple.

Basavanagudi is one of the oldest areas of Bangalore. 4.6 km far from Bangalore City Railway Station and BMTC, and 38.7 km to Kempegowda International airport. The main commercial street of Basavanagudi is DVG Road, which is home to numerous retail businesses, Most of them dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. Towards the middle of DVG Road is Gandhi Bazaar, which is well known for fresh flowers, fruits, and vegetables.

Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace, Bengaluru

Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace, in Bangalore, India, is an example of Indo-Islamic architecture and was the summer residence of the Mysorean ruler Tipu Sultan. Hyder Ali commenced its construction within the walls of the Bangalore Fort, and it was completed during the reign of Tipu Sultan in 1791. After Tipu Sultan's death in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the British Administration used the palace for its Secretariat before moving to Attara Kacheri in 1868. Today the government of Karnataka maintains the palace, which is located at the center of Old Bangalore near the Kalasipalyam bus stand, as a tourist spot.

The structure was built entirely teak and stands adorned with pillars, arches and balconies. It is believed that Tipu Sultan used to conduct his durbar (court) from the eastern and western balconies of the upper floor. There are four smaller rooms in the corners of first floor which were Zenana Quarters.There are beautiful floral motifs embellishing the walls of the palace. The site also holds a painting of grand throne visualized by Tipu Sultan himself. Coated with gold sheets and stuck with precious emerald stones, Tipu had vowed never to use it until he completely defeated the British Army. After Tipu Sultan's death, the British dismantled the throne and auctioned its parts as it was too expensive for a single person to buy it as a one piece.