Excerpts from our Early History Files – 1939 to 1989
By Late Advocate Shri R. H. Kulkarni
In the glorious history of our freedom struggle, lawyers of Belagavi District have played a remarkable role. Distinguished Lawyers and freedom fighters of Belagavi, Bijapur and Dharwad districts realized the importance of legal education in North Karnataka. Legal Education then was very expensive and was not available here. To get a law degree, one had to go to Bombay, Poona, Kolhapur, or Madras. In 1939, this Society was formed and registered under the Societies act in 1860. Later it was registered under the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950. The Law College was started in November 1939. Shri G.H. Kelkar, a silver-tongued orator who had earlier mooted the idea of starting Law College at Belagavi became the first Principal, sacrificing his lucrative practice.
Other founder members worked as Honorary part-time professors, prominent among them being serious B.N.Datar, V.A.Naik, N.S.Shrikhande, Barrister R.P.Pandit, Y.N. Lele, D.R.Majali, V.A.Mujumdar and D.P.Karmarkar.
Within a short period, the college acquired the popularity and status of a prestigious institution on account of its high academic standard of teaching and good results. This attracted students from Andhra, Kerala and Madras. There were many occasions when then the college had to reject applications for admission on account of heavy rush of students
Members on whose sacrifice, sincerity and hard work this institution was built up included Justice N.S.Lokur, who was the first President of the society, Sarvashri Narayanrao Joshi, the then Deputy Speaker of erstwhile Bombay Legislative Assembly, S.N. Angadi, who later became Deputy Speaker of Bombay Legislative Assembly, B.N.Datar, a freedom fighter and Union Home Minister, Keshavrao Gokhale, a Freedom Fighter and a legislator from Belagavi, D.R.Majali, a noted senior lawyer and freedom fighter, Justice V.A. Naik Judge of Bombay High Court, N.S.Shrikhande who later joined the judiciary and retired as District Judge, V.A.Mujumdar, an eminent lawyer from Belagavi, V.D. Belvi, Senior member of Belagavi Bar, V.G.Jamakhandi and Rao Bahadur Sawkar, Senior Lawyers from Dharwad. Barrister R.P.Pandit, Y.N.Lele and V.V.Albal later joined this august body
An application for affiliation with Law College was made to Bombay University. According to rules then prevailing, an amount of Rs 1 Lakh was required to be deposited with the University. Late Shri G.H.Kelkar who happened to be a close friend of late Shri Basavprabhu Sardesai of Vantamuri ( son of late Shri Rajasaheb ) and Late Shri B.N.Datar approached late Shri Rajasheb Lakhamgounda Sardesai of Vantamuri for donations. He was a king among donors and a donor among kings. Rajasheb, the first Barrister at Law from Karnataka, without any hesitation contributed a huge sum of money in the form of a Government Promissory Note. The college came to be named after him as “Raja Lakhamgounda Law College”. In 1939 the college started functioning with only 37 students.
It was a glorious day in the infant life of the college when, the then Diwan of Mysore, Sir Mirza Ismail Formally Inaugurated the functioning of the college in the new premises in 1940. The College was first housed in Doddannavar’s Bungalow at Belagavi Fort during the second term in the academic year of 1938-39. It was later shifted to the magnificent palatial building of Anant Bhat in Tilakwadi from November 1939
On account of selfless services of founder members of the society and others who served as Honorary Professors, a Lot of money was saved and out of these savings, the foundation stone for the Law College building was laid by Maharaja of Mysore in 1950 in the present premises of the Law College.
Consequently, the management was able to start in 1954 it’s Commerce College of which Late Wrangler P.S.Katti became the first Principal. The heavy responsibility of managing these colleges soon brought the society into financial difficulties (and the same difficulty was also faced by Law College) as a result of which several attempts were made to collect funds to meet the situation. Good luck would have it the Management approached Raosaheb B. M.Gogte noted industrialist of Karnataka and Maharashtra for donations he donated the sum of Rs 50,000/- to tide all over difficulties. In 1966 college was named after him, as “Gogte College of Commerce” and Raosaheb B.M.Gogte was made a Patron of the Society. Thanks to the Great philanthropist who again came to our rescue when the Society started its Engineering College in the year 1979. He gave a munificent donation of Rs. 10 Lakhs to the new Engineering College started by the Karnatak Law Society. It was named – “Gogte Institute of Technology”.
. . . . . and the magnificent journey has continued since.