Orissa High Court Bar Association To Hold Peaceful March, Abstain From Work Over Non-Appointment Of Judges

The OHCBA had held a General Body Meeting on September 22, in which it was decided to hold a march to the Lok Bhawan (Governor's House) from Bhubaneswar Club on October 01 to register grievances and to submit a Memorandum to Dr. Hari Babu Kambhampati, the Governor of Odisha for its onward transmission to Smt. Droupadi Murmu, the President of India.

The Bar Body intends to apprise the unfortunate state of affairs in the Orissa High Court, which is suffering from acute shortage of Judges. The Bar has also resolved not to attend the Court tomorrow.

Notably, the OHCBA, led by its President-Senior Advocate Lalatendu Samantaray, had held a press conference on August 17 this year to voice concerns of the Bar over low functional strength of High Court Judges and lack of regular appointments, against an ever-increasing docket pendency.

Mr. Samantaray had then highlighted a “stand-still” situation in the High Court and a continued apathy towards the State's higher Judiciary. He had underscored that more than 1.72 lakhs cases were pending before the High Court, and with the existing strength of Judges, it would nearly be impossible to decide even 50% of the pendency in a year. He had then warned thus–

“The existing vacancies ought to be filled as soon as possible. Any step-motherly attitude should not be shown to us. The OHCBA has authorized us to meet the CJI, Members of the Collegium and the President to let them know of our grievances. If those steps do not yield results, we have decided to approach the Supreme Court under Article 32 [of the Constitution] through a writ petition. If that also fails, we will be constrained to sit on a protest.”

On August 18, the Supreme Court Collegium had recommended the names of four Advocates – Sasmita Tripathy, Aditya Narayan Das, Rajjeet Roy and Gautam Misra as Judges of the High Court, which are yet to be cleared by the Centre.

Notably, the sanctioned strength of the High Court was increased to 33, i.e. 24 permanent and 9 Additional Judges, in 2022. Since then, the High Court has never witnessed its full working strength. The last appointment to the Court was made as back as in September 2023 when Justices Sibo Sankar Mishra and Ananda Chandra Behera (since retired) took oath.

At the beginning of this year, the Court had a working strength of 20 Judges. In January, senior Judge Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo (now retired) was appointed as the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court. Subsequently, Justices Ananda Chandra Behera and Dixit Krishna Shripad retired in the months of May and July respectively, taking down the tally to 17.

Earlier this month, the senior-most Judge Justice Manash Ranjan Pathak joined the Gujarat High Court upon his transfer, and another senior Judge Justice Krushna Ram Mohapatra was appointed as the Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court. Resultantly, the working strength of Judges has come down to a historic low of 15 Judges, against a sanctioned strength of 33 Judges, which is less than 50%.

Moreover, Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Chittaranjan Dash are slated for superannuation in November. If no fresh appointment comes through in the meantime, the strength is all set to witness a further downward slope to 13 Judges.

Also pertinent to mention that the High Court has remained unrepresented in the Supreme Court since the last eight years. The last Judge from the High Court who was elevated to the Apex Court was Justice Dipak Misra. Justice Misra was appointed to the top Court in October 2011 and he held the office of the CJI between August 2017 and October 2018. No Judge from the Orissa High Court has been appointed to the Supreme Court for the last 15 years.