About Us

"The Judicial Officers have to face all kinds of situations in Courts, including difficulties created by obstructionist and cantankerous litigants and overbearing and aggressive counsel. To enable them to meet such situations, had to equip them properly for the discharge of their responsibilities, it is essential that there should be a course of training for all judicial officers before they start functioning as judicial officers."

Full Court of the High Court of Karnataka proposed to take the training programme further and on 12 th March, 1980, passed the following resolution.

• "That the Munsiffs proposed to be recruited be given appropriate training for a period of three to four weeks, preferably at the Administrative Training Institute, Mysore."
• "To entrust Hon'ble Sri. Justice M. N. Venkatachalaiah, as he then was, to work out the details of the training programme."

On receipt of report by Hon'ble Sri. Justice M. N. Venkatachalaiah, Full Court in its meeting held on 18 th April 1980, approved the proposed scheme and commenced training of Munsiffs for a period of two months.

Practical training which was imparted to the trainees included:>

• visits to various Courts
• observation of the working of different branches of the Court, with a particular emphasis on the copying section, process staff, record keeping, decree writing, accounts, drafting of correspondence, maintenance of files and registers
• visit to forensic science laboratory and the department of Ballistics, Finger Print Bureau, Government Computer Center
• observing postmortem examinations in Victoria Hospital, and studying the medico legal aspects
• visit to the open air jail at Koramangala
• cadastral and theodolite survey

The successful training imparted by the High Court of Karnataka to its Munsiff's received attention throughout the country. In this regard, the Joint Director, Administrative Training Institute, Uttara Pradesh, Nainital wrote a letter dated 10 th October, 1980 to the Deputy Secretary to the Government, Department of Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Bangalore seeking details of the training programme imparted to the newly appointed Munsiffs in the Karnataka Judicial Service.

Full Court in its meeting held on 28 th September, 1981 resolved to constitute a Committee to prepare a training programme for new batch of Munsiffs.

The then Hon'ble Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, Hon'ble Sri. Justice V. S. Malimath conceptualized the idea of establishing an institution of a permanent nature. Under his Lordship's vision and foresight, the Directorate of Training was established on 20 th July, 1984 at Bengaluru, the capital city of Karnataka State.

Appendix-I of the 117 th report pertains to training facilities available to the judicial officers in various States. The Law Commission of India has referred to the fact that Munsiffs of the 1980 batch in Karnataka had undergone training and that the High Court of Karnataka was actively considering setting up of a training institute. The report depicted the pioneering work undertaken by Karnataka and further recorded that there were no active training programmes in any of the other states.

From 1978 until the establishment of the Karnataka Judicial Academy in 1999, twelve batches of judicial officers in the cadre of Munsiffs (now titled Civil Judges) were trained.

"The Judicial Officers have to face all kinds of situations in Courts, including difficulties created by obstructionist and cantankerous litigants and overbearing and aggressive counsel. To enable them to meet such situations, had to equip them properly for the discharge of their responsibilities, it is essential that there should be a course of training for all judicial officers before they start functioning as judicial officers."

Full Court of the High Court of Karnataka proposed to take the training programme further and on 12 th March, 1980, passed the following resolution.

• "That the Munsiffs proposed to be recruited be given appropriate training for a period of three to four weeks, preferably at the Administrative Training Institute, Mysore."
• "To entrust Hon’ble Sri. Justice M. N. Venkatachalaiah, as he then was, to work out the details of the training programme."

On receipt of report by Hon’ble Sri. Justice M. N. Venkatachalaiah, Full Court in its meeting held on 18 th April 1980, approved the proposed scheme and commenced training of Munsiffs for a period of two months.

Practical training which was imparted to the trainees included:>

• visits to various Courts
• observation of the working of different branches of the Court, with a particular emphasis on the copying section, process staff, record keeping, decree writing, accounts, drafting of correspondence, maintenance of files and registers
• visit to forensic science laboratory and the department of Ballistics, Finger Print Bureau, Government Computer Center
• observing postmortem examinations in Victoria Hospital, and studying the medico legal aspects
• visit to the open air jail at Koramangala
• cadastral and theodolite survey

The successful training imparted by the High Court of Karnataka to its Munsiff’s received attention throughout the country. In this regard, the Joint Director, Administrative Training Institute, Uttara Pradesh, Nainital wrote a letter dated 10 th October, 1980 to the Deputy Secretary to the Government, Department of Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Bangalore seeking details of the training programme imparted to the newly appointed Munsiffs in the Karnataka Judicial Service.

Full Court in its meeting held on 28 th September, 1981 resolved to constitute a Committee to prepare a training programme for new batch of Munsiffs.

Keeping in view of the expanding training programmes, to accommodate more classes and to provide better infrastructure, construction of a new building for the Karnataka Judicial Academy was taken up. The 1 st phase of the same was completed and inaugurated on 11.01.2020 by Hon'ble Shri. Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, Chief Justice of India. Shri. B. S. Yediyurappa, Hon'ble Chief Minister, Government of Karnataka was the Chief Guest. Hon'ble Shri. Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar, Judge, Supreme Court of India, Hon'ble Shri. Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, Judge, Supreme Court of India, Hon'ble Shri. Justice Ajjikuttira Somaiah Bopanna, Judge, Supreme Court of India and Hon'ble Shri. Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, Chief Justice, High Court of Karnataka & Patron-in-Chief, Karnataka Judicial Academy were the Guests of Honour. Shri. Govinda Makthappa Karajol, Hon'ble Deputy Chief Minister & Hon'ble Minister for PWD, Government of Karnataka and Shri. J. C. Madhu Swamy, the then Hon'ble Minister of Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation, Government of Karnataka were the special invitees. Hon'ble Shri. Justice Ravi Malimath, the then Judge, High Court of Karnataka & President, Karnataka Judicial Academy and the then Governors of the Karnataka Judicial Academy Hon'ble Smt. Justice B. V. Nagarathna, Hon'ble Shri. Justice John Michael Cunha, Hon'ble Shri. Justice K. N. Phaneendra, and Hon'ble Shri. Justice S. Sunil Dutt Yadav, Judges of High Court of Karnataka were present.

The Foundation Laying Ceremony of Phase-II of the new building of Karnataka Judicial Academy was held on 06.02.2021 by Hon'ble Shri. Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, Chief Justice, High Court of Karnataka & Patron-in-Chief, Karnataka Judicial Academy. Shri. B. S. Yediyurappa, Hon'ble Chief Minister, Government of Karnataka, Hon'ble Shri. Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar, Judge, Supreme Court of India, (Through Video Conference), Hon'ble Shri. Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, Judge, Supreme Court of India and Hon'ble Shri. Justice A. S. Bopanna, Judge, Supreme Court of India were the Chief Guests. Shri. Govind M. Karjol, Hon'ble Deputy Chief Minister & Hon'ble Minister for PWD, Government of Karnataka and Shri. Basavaraj S. Bommai, Hon'ble Minister for Home, Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation, Government of Karnataka were the special invitees. Hon'ble Smt. Justice B. V. Nagarathna, Judge, High Court of Karnataka & President, Karnataka Judicial Academy and the Governors of the Karnataka Judicial Academy Hon'ble Shri. Justice P. S. Dinesh Kumar, Judge, High Court of Karnataka, Hon'ble Shri. Justice John Michael Cunha, Judge, High Court of Karnataka, Hon'ble Shri. Justice S. Sunil Dutt Yadav, Judge, High Court of Karnataka and Hon'ble Shri. Justice Ashok Golappa Nijagannavar, Judge, High Court of Karnataka were present.

The Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka and the Karnataka Judicial Academy are continuously making serious efforts to provide appropriate infrastructure and required training to upgrade the standards of judicial officers in discharging their day-to-day duties more effectively.