Descendants of Baboo Unnoda Persaud Banerjee (1818–1902), the eminent 19th-century Bengali lawyer of Calcutta, have donated his private papers, certificates, will and court-related legal documents to the National Archives of India (NAI) in New Delhi. The collection, to be titled “Private Papers of Unnoda Persaud Banerjee”, will be digitised and made accessible to researchers worldwide through Abhilekh Patal, the archives’ online portal. But a personality like Unnoda Persaud Banerjee, a contemporary of iconic lawyer Sambhunath Pandit, revolutionist journalist Harish Mukherjee and Nobel-winning polymath Rabindranath Tagore needed to be known to the younger generation. Banerjee joined the Sudder Diwani Adalat Bar as a pleader in 1853 and later practised at Calcutta High Court. In 1870, he became Senior Government Pleader and ex-officio President of the Calcutta High Court Bar Association, serving for two decades until his retirement in 1890—the longest tenure in that office.

Source: The Telegraph February 22, 2026 23:08 UTC