From academics to adjudications: The Madras Law College building

On October 26, 2025, an academic institution of once enviable repute donned the robes of a constitutional adjudicator.

Dr Ambedkar Government Law College, formerly known as the Madras Law College, recently ceded its academic space to the judicial realm of the Madras High Court to accommodate 6 additional court halls and the attendant facilities.

The building has an interesting lore to be proud of. Legal education in the Madras Presidency has its origin in the informal law classes given by George Norton, who was then the Advocate General of Madras State (1827-1853). These were more in the nature of conversations on legal subjects rather than formal regular classes. Later, when the Presidency College was established in the early 1850s, John Bruce Norton, a nephew of George Norton, was appointed as its first Professor of Law in 1855. Till about 1884, he was the only Professor of Law for the college.

Subsequently, owing to the initiatives of HB Grigg, the director of public institutions whose efforts were ably supported by Justice T Muthusamy Iyer, the Law College came to be established as an independent institution in 1891.

However, till the magnificent structure - which on October 26 was inaugurated to function as an annex of the Madras High Court - was constructed, it did not have an independent building to function from and functioned from the Presidency College, Madras. The Law College building, designed by Henry Irwin was ultimately inaugurated on January 9, 1899.

When it existed as an educational institution, it was the alma mater for some of the finest legal brains that the country has ever produced. Not only that, the quality of lecturers taught at the institution were the pride of legal academics. While RANelson was the first Principal of the institution, many stalwarts such as Charles E Odgers, Arthur Davis, C Madhavan Nair, C Kunhi Raman, K Krishna Menon and Prof C Raja Raman added lustre and prominence to the institution.

Being a Principal of the institution was a matter of such great prestige that one giant of the Bar, Dr S Swaminadhan (father of late S Govind Swaminadhan, former Advocate General of Madras) and one of the early doctorates in law from the Harvard University, suspended a thriving and lucrative practice to function as Acting Principal of the College from June 29, 1908 to October 18, 1909.

Leading Lights of the Bar like Mr. V.P. Raman (Former Advocate General) and many others of his ilk had also officiated as part time lecturers at the institution. Its Alumni included National Leaders like C.Rajagopalachari (who of course qualified in law when it functioned from the Presidency College) & innumerable other stalwarts, that is Chief Justices of India, Judges of the Supreme Court, Judges of High courts, Chief ministers of many States, Ministers, social workers have all been part of the alumni of the institution.

Certain unfortunate episodes between warring factions of students of the institution eventually lead to the slow but steady death of a glorious institution. By 2018, it stopped accommodating students for academic pursuits and the building was eventually surrendered to the High Court by the government. The building suffered extensive damages on account of the tunneling work undertaken by the Chennai Metro Rail. This triggered a PIL in the Madras High Court demanding that the building be repaired and the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) was directed to pay the cost of repairing the structure. The Madras High Court entertained the petition and with CMRL’s gracious gesture of agreeing to bear the cost of restoration, the renovation was directed to be undertaken under the supervision of the civil engineering arm of IIT Madras, the heritage committee of the Madras High Court and the Public Works Department of the High Court led by its very committed chief engineer, Kuzhandayan. It was only after the work was inspected by IIT Madras and the renovation work was certified to have been completed satisfactorily was the writ petition closed.

As the status of the building was indeterminate, Senior Advocate Arvind P Datar and myself submitted a model of a plan to convert the building into a National Constitution Centre in memory of Dr BR Ambedkar. However, even though few Chief Justices were interested in the proposal, since the proposal did not come within the province of the functions of the High Court, it could not be taken further. One does hope and pray that sooner or later, the nation would give itself a National Constitution Centre which would be a fitting tribute to the document that has held us all together as a nation for seven and more decades. A point of controversy is the existence of a national protected monument which is the tomb of David Yale & Joseph Hynmer. The question as to whether this tomb should be removed or whether it should be maintained as a national monument under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act 1958, is pending before the Supreme Court.

As the High Court embraces this momentous edifice and brings it into its fold, it is time for celebration and cheers. The proposal to house six courts dealing with criminal matters in the renovated building has evoked resistance from those practicing at the criminal Bar. Given its distance from the main High Court building, any proposal to situate benches dealing with any specialty will naturally attract feelings of isolation from practitioners of that branch of law. However, given the fact that whatever arrangement is conceived, it is evident that some inconvenience will have to be suffered by some class of lawyers. It would be possibly charitable not to ask ourselves the question “Why Me?”.

One possible solution of course is to rotate the sittings relating to various portfolios so that no particular branch of legal practitioners feels the burden in any exclusive way. In a democratic establishment, it is always open to the aggrieved to place their request for consideration before the appropriate authorities and none can be faulted for that. However, in the ultimate analysis, we need to understand that advocates are committed soldiers of the institution, committed to a nobler purpose. So long as the proposals do not breach any established law, it would add glory to our stature to fall in line with any administrative decision on the issue. In the ultimate analysis, adding glory to a building that has nurtured and developed glorious persons of stature and respect will add greater distinction to the duties we discharge.

We need to recall the words of Paul Coelho, who so famously remarked,

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse."

To add our footfalls to the footsteps of great giants who have populated the building in the distant past is a blessing. Let us look at it from that angle and not treat it as a curse or even an inconvenience.

NL Rajah is a Senior Advocate practicing at the Madras High Court.