The state government has decided to handover Nyaymandir to the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC), nearly four years after the district court relocated to Diwalipura.
The state government has decided to consider VMC’s proposal to convert the building into a ‘City Heritage Museum,’ which was submitted in January 2021. Nyaymandir, an iconic landmark in Vadodara, is set to get a new purpose.
Late on Thursday, a release from the office of Gujarat Minister of Revenue and Law & Justice, Rajendra Trivedi, stated, “It has been decided that the structure of Nyaymandir will be turned into a city heritage museum and the Lal Court — which stands across the road from Nyaymandir — will be turned into an art gallery. All steps will be taken to turn the two historic buildings into important places for the people of the city and be inaugurated in a grand ceremony soon.”
The release also said that Trivedi, after meeting with Rushikesh Trivedi, Gujarat Minister of Health & Family Welfare, ensured that the officials of the health department, who had been occupying the Lal court building, vacated it in time for its handover. Located in the heart of Vadodara, across the Sursagar lake, the doors of architect Robert Chisholm’s creation have remained tightly shut since March 2018.
Built at a cost of Rs 7 lakh at the time of its inauguration, it was originally titled Chimnabai Nyay Mandir — after the beloved first wife of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III — at the time of its inauguration on November 30, 1896, by Viceroy Lord Elgin.
The structure was originally intended to be a two-story vegetable market in the city’s centre. When Maharaja Sayajirao III saw the structure’s grandeur, he changed his mind and decided to convert it into a town hall and a court.
The central hall of the building, decorated with distinct mosaic work, also has a statue of Maharani Chimnabai, created by Italian sculptor Augusto Felici. Pre-independence, when the Gaekwads ruled the erstwhile royal state of Baroda, Nyaymandir was the Supreme Court of the state.