The discoveries of metal complex drugs are found to be more effective than parent drugs to overcome the microbial resistance towards antibiotics. This work involves synthesis, structural investigation and assessment of antibacterial activities of free 1, 10-phenanthroline, 2,2- bipyridine and metal complexes. The complexes were characterized by using different physicochemical and spectroscopic techniques such as FT-IR, UV-Vis and ICP-OES. The results indicated that the copper ion coordinated to phenanthroline and 2, 2-bipyridine ligands to give square pyramidal geometry. The complexes and ligands have been screened for in-vitro antibacterial activity against two gram positive and two gram negative bacteria. The antibacterial screening showed that the copper (II) complexes have reduced activity towards the various bacteria when compared with the free ligand phenanthroline. However, copper (II) complexes have better antibacterial activity compared with the free ligand 2, 2-bipyridine. Keywords: Cu (II) complexes, 1, 10-phenanthroline, 2, 2-bipyridine, antibacterial activity