Calcutta High Court, High court building in Kolkata, India
The Calcutta High Court is an appellate court in Kolkata, India, housed in a neo-Gothic building featuring pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses. The structure rises across multiple stories with tall halls and wide staircases leading to courtrooms.
Queen Victoria established the court on July 1, 1862, through Letters Patent, creating the oldest high court in India. Walter Long Bozzi Granville designed the building ten years later, drawing on Belgian civic architecture for inspiration.
The English name preserves the former spelling of the city, which survives in legal contexts to this day. Visitors studying the facade recognize the adaptation of a Flemish town hall design transplanted into a tropical setting.
The court sits on Esplanade Row West in Kolkata and exercises jurisdiction over West Bengal and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Visitors should note that it is an active court building and may have certain access restrictions in place.
Granville's design drew on the Cloth Hall of Ypres as a model, transplanting its Gothic forms onto Indian soil. Despite the city's official renaming in 2001, the court retains its historical designation in all records.
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