On October 26, the Madras High Court inaugurated its “Additional Heritage Court Building”, a stately edifice that once housed the iconic Madras Law College. Located at Parrys, at the confluence of Esplanade Road and NSC Bose Road, this building was more than an academic institution; it was the heart of legal education in South India.
Remarkably, five Union Finance Ministers hail from Madras Law College. For over a century, it trained generations of lawyers, judges and public servants who shaped both the Bench, the Bar and public institutions. Its classrooms echoed with arguments that later found their way into courtrooms; its corridors were extensions of justice itself.
That the building has been restored after years of neglect and structural instability is unquestionably welcome. But the decision to repurpose it as an “Additional Court Building” - reportedly to house criminal courts - merits careful scrutiny. Restoration is not merely about rebuilding walls; it is about restoring meaning. A heritage revived without its original purpose risks becoming a relic, not a living institution.
Logic dictates that the Government Law College should return to its ancestral home. The College was evacuated over seven years ago due to safety concerns and metro construction. Its return would have symbolised continuity - the seamless dialogue between learning and practice that defined Chennai’s legal tradition.
Instead, the restored building is being inaugurated as a functional court complex. In effect, the Law College’s homecoming has been replaced by an administrative relocation. The State and the Court have preserved the body of the building, but displaced its soul. Heritage is being celebrated, but history is being rewritten.
The stated justification for the move is spatial necessity. The High Court is indeed bursting at the seams. Yet if decongestion is the goal, why only the criminal courts? Why this selective relocation? Ironically, the Madras High Court, ever mindful of its space constraints, still finds room within its precincts for the bar associations.
Civil or commercial courts, if moved, would provoke protest from the Bar. The reason is clear: such a move fragments practice, inconveniences clients and divides the profession. The same logic applies here. Criminal courts are integral to the judicial ecosystem. Indeed, they are the most democratic face of the justice system, accessible to young lawyers, first-generation practitioners and citizens who rely on legal aid and cannot afford high-cost litigation.
By isolating criminal courts, the judiciary risks reinforcing an unintended hierarchy: the High Court’s central complex continues to host the ‘prestigious’ benches, whereas the criminal courts - essential to safeguarding ordinary citizens - are placed on the ‘periphery.’ Even if well-intentioned, such spatial separation undermines the principle of equality that the law is meant to uphold.
Criminal practice has historically been the most inclusive avenue of the profession. It is where junior lawyers first argue independently; where access to justice for the poor is most direct; where constitutional rights are tested daily. To displace this sphere to a separate complex is to push the most egalitarian space in the legal system to the margins.
The consequences will not be merely symbolic. Senior advocates may hesitate to take briefs that involve commuting between the main complex and the satellite courts. Juniors will struggle to appear across multiple courts in a single day. Clerks, clients and government officials, who are already navigating logistical challenges, face new burdens. The result is unlikely to be efficiency; it will be exhaustion.
The introduction of CISF for court security adds further strain. Two complexes to secure, records to transport, judges to coordinate - administrative complexity multiplies. The profession thrives on osmosis: junior lawyers learn by observing civil and criminal proceedings alike. Dividing courts severs that exchange.
As Fali Nariman recalls of his senior Sir Jamshedji Kanga in Before Memory Fades,
“During the day he would sit in various courts, imbibing the difficult art of how to argue, and (more importantly) how not to argue a case—merely by intelligently watching others perform!”
That quiet apprenticeship, born of proximity, nurtures generations of advocates. Dispersing courts diminishes it.
No one disputes that modernisation and expansion are essential. But progress must not come at the cost of memory. The restored Law College building could have served a nobler purpose: as a judicial-academic complex, part museum, part training centre, part moot court, part classroom. It could have become a bridge between Bar, Bench and classroom, nurturing lawyers who learn not merely from textbooks but from proximity to practice.
Such a model would honour both heritage and utility. It would revive the apprenticeship culture that once defined Chennai’s legal fraternity. The building’s true legacy lies in legal education.
The decision before us is more than administrative; it reflects how we understand our institutions - as living organisms or architectural relics. Treating heritage merely as structure reduces history to decor. The greater act of preservation lies in restoring purpose. The Madras Law College was not just built next to the High Court; it was built into it, intellectually, culturally and symbolically.
Returning the College to its home would not have been sentimental indulgence; it would have been institutional integrity. Short of that, the premises could house a Law Museum and training programmes for young lawyers across disciplines. Criminal courts should remain integrated within the High Court complex, where equality of access and collegiality of practice thrive.
The judiciary’s expansion is inevitable, as is the demand for infrastructure. But progress without consultation risks alienation. Decisions affecting thousands of lawyers and litigants must emerge from dialogue, not decree. The Bar, too, must defend the inclusiveness of the profession - for the junior who cannot afford two clerks and for the student yearning to walk those historic corridors, aspiring to emulate the excellence of those who once graced them.
Before concluding, I borrow the words of Rajya Sabha MP NR Elango:
The restored edifice stands as a testament to Chennai’s legal heritage. To use it merely as an overflow facility would be to mistake preservation for progress. In saving the heritage building, we must not lose its meaning — for history will not forgive us if, in the name of restoration, we exile its soul.
Dhileepan Pakutharivu is an advocate practicing before the Madras High Court.