Chennai: The State Assembly on Monday adopted a unanimous resolution moved by chief minister Jayalalithaa asking the Centre to rename Madras High Court as Tamil Nadu High Court and not Chennai HC as proposed in a Bill introduced in Parliament last month.

Later, Jayalalithaa wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring in a necessary amendment in the Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha to rename High Court of Madras as the High Court of Tamil Nadu .

“It would not be appropriate to name the high court which has jurisdiction over the whole of Tamil Nadu as the high court of Chennai; hence it is befitting that the high court which is presently called the HC of Madras be renamed as the HC of Tamil Nadu,” Jayalalithaa said moving the resolution which was supported by all the parties including DMK and Congress.

The Centre introduced the “The High Courts (Alteration of Names) Bill, 2016” in the Lok Sabha on July 19 in order to rename the high courts of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. As per this Bill, from the appointed day, the HC of Madras will be known as the high court of Chennai. “This House urges the Union government to alter the name from Chennai HC, proposed in the Bill introduced in Parliament to Tamil Nadu HC,” the resolution said.

Pointing out that the high courts situated in other states take the respective names of such states, which were formed on linguistic basis in 1956, the resolution said that since the HC, which is situated in the Chennai city, has jurisdiction over the whole of Tamil Nadu and it has an HC bench in Madurai, it would be appropriate to rename the HC of Madras as the HC of Tamil Nadu. Deputy Opposition leader Duraimurugan welcomed the resolution. “I welcome the resolution moved by the chief minister on behalf of my party. It will be appropriate to name HC of Madras as HC of TN instead of HC of Chennai,” he said.

In a letter to Mr Modi, she said that based on overwhelming public opinion in Tamil Nadu, the proposed change of name was debated in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. “After a detailed discussion, the Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on August 1, 2016, to call upon the government of India to move necessary amendments to the bill introduced in the LS so as to rename the HC of Madras as the HC of TN for the reasons outlined in the resolution,” she said.