History

The District Judiciary – Aligarh

The district of Aligarh was created in the year 1804AD. Diwani Adalat was established in this district with Judge as its head and also having the courts of one Registrar and two Sadar Ameens. Munsifs were first appointed in 1815 under the Regulation XXIII of 1814, and one each of them were stationed at the Tehsils of Atrauli, Khair, Kauriaganj and Sikandra Rao. In 1833 AD, the Munsif of Kauriaganj was shifted to Koil whereas Munsif of Sikandra Rao was shifted to Hathras. Thus, the district of Aligarh in 1833, contained total seven Munsifs i.e. Koil, Akrabad, Khair, Hathras, Kasganj, Raya and Jalesar. In 1846, the Munsifs of Raya and Jalesar were transferred to Agra and the district of Aligarh remained the five Munsifs. In 1880, Khair and Akrabad ceased to have Munsifs Courts.

By the Regulation of VII of 1831, the Judge of the Diwani Adalat was designated as the District and Sessions Judge and Mr. J. Neave, Esq. was appointed the first District and Session Judge of Aligarh. By the enactment of the Bengal, Agra and Assam Civil Courts Act (Act No. XII of 1887), one Additional Judge with concurrent jurisdiction was appointed in the district Aligarh. In 1930, a separate court called Judge, Small Causes Court was appointed in Aligarh. Since then, as many as 25 such additional courts have been established to share the increasing work load of litigation. The District Judiciary of Aligarh functioned under overall control of the Sadar Diwani Adalat and the Sadar Nizamat Adalat, the highest courts of appeal in India in civil and criminal matters respectively, at Calcutta having jurisdiction over the North West province from 1804 to 1831, under the control of the Sadar Diwani Adalat and the Sadar Nizamat Adalat at Allahabad from 1832 to 1866 and under the control of the High Court of Judicature for the North-Western Province (presently known as High Court of Judicature at Allahabad) since 1866 and is functioning under the same control till today.
Similarly, for revenue matters, the jurisdiction was exercised by the Diwani Adalat exclusively till 1834 AD and since 1859 AD, the Collector was authorized to hear all revenue cases of any type within the district.

Aligarh District Court – The Present Set-Up

Aligarh Judgeship is at present having a sanctioned strength of 69 Courts including one Additional Court for section 138 N.I Acts, two Special JM Courts and one Gram Nyayalaya at Tehsil Gabhana. The (old) main building of the District Court of Aligarh was constructed in year 1903-05. During the course of time, other Court buildings which contains the Courts of Additional District Judges, Magistracy and the Civil Judges (i.e. CJM building, 03 Court room building, FTC building, Nyay Nikunj building and Nine Court room building) were also constructed.

Eminent personalities from the Aligarh District

1. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Munsif in Aligarh from 1864 to 1867AD
2. Syed Mahmood: First Indian Judge of the High Court of the judicature of the North-West Province.
3. Seikh Abdullah: First elected president of the Civil Bar Association, Aligarh in 1904.
4. Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman: In 1932, he became the first Indian to be appointed as the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court.