The Kerala High Court Has Been in Ernakulam Longer Than Kerala Itself

The Kerala High Court has sat in Ernakulam since 7 July 1949, seventeen years before the state it now serves even existed, back when it was the High Court of the princely-state union of Travancore-Cochin. Kerala itself was not formed until 1 November 1956. The court on Shanmugham Road today is, in a real sense, older than Kerala.

• Where is the Kerala High Court, and how old is it?
• How did Kerala end up with one High Court from three?
• How many judges sit on the Kerala High Court?
• Can the public follow Kerala High Court proceedings without going in person?
• Why does a Kerala court also cover Lakshadweep?

Where is the Kerala High Court, and how old is it?

The court's current building sits on Shanmugham Road, Ernakulam, not far from Ernakulam Junction, and the court moved there in 2006. For the fifty years before that, from 1956 onward, it sat inside Ram Mohan Palace, a two-storeyed building on the backwaters built in the mid-1930s to mark a viceregal visit. That building had already served as a military hospital during the Second World War and later as the state secretariat before the court took it over. It still stands, and today houses the Kerala Judicial Academy, the Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre and the Vigilance Registrar's office. The Ernakulam District Court itself sits in a different, older building nearby, the former seat of the High Court of Cochin, which is where the Travancore-Cochin High Court actually operated between 1949 and 1956, before the move to Ram Mohan Palace.

How did Kerala end up with one High Court from three?

Before 1956, no single court covered the territory that is now Kerala. Malabar in the north answered to the Madras High Court. The former princely states had their own: the High Court of Travancore, set up in 1887, and the High Court of Cochin, set up in 1938. When Travancore and Cochin merged on 1 July 1949, their two courts merged into the High Court of Travancore-Cochin, seated at Ernakulam. Then the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 folded Malabar in as well, and on 1 November 1956 the merged court was renamed the High Court of Kerala, with Justice K T Koshi, the last Chief Justice of Travancore-Cochin, becoming its first.

How many judges sit on the Kerala High Court?

The court's founding bench in 1956 had six judges. It has grown a long way since, though the exact sanctioned strength shifts from year to year as the central government revises it. What has not changed is the structure: a Chief Justice heading a mix of permanent and additional judges, hearing both original matters and appeals from courts across the state.

Can the public follow Kerala High Court proceedings without going in person?

More easily now than at any point in the court's history. An internet-based case management system, rolled out in 2019, handles e-filing, automatic case allocation, digital cause lists and digitally signed orders and judgments, so a case's progress no longer requires a physical visit to check, the same shift Kerala has made with everyday paperwork through DigiLocker. The court also runs VCONSOL, its own virtual courthouse platform, and a mobile app for looking up case status. Some practical starting points:

• Case status and cause lists: the court's e-Committee-linked portal and mobile app
• Certified copies of orders: available online through the same e-filing system, rather than only over the counter
• General case law and judgments: published through the court's own digital archive

None of this is unique to Kerala, Indian High Courts have been moving this way for years, but Kerala's version has been running long enough now to be genuinely usable rather than a pilot project bolted onto a paper process.

Why does a Kerala court also cover Lakshadweep?

The Kerala High Court is also the High Court for the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, a chain of islands roughly 220 to 440 km off the Kerala coast with no High Court of its own. Day-to-day judicial work on the islands runs through Munsiff Courts at Andrott and Amini, which double as magistrate courts for their island clusters, but any matter that needs a High Court goes to Kochi. It is a small, easily missed fact about a court most Kochi residents only think about when summoned, or when a headline about a verdict mentions it, much like most people only learn the difference between Kochi Corporation and GCDA the day they need one of them. Either way, the building on Shanmugham Road has been doing this job, in one legal form or another, since 1949, longer than the state around it.