Orissa High Court Bar Association opposes plan to set up additional benches

BHUBANESWAR: The Orissa High Court Bar Association in Cuttack on Wednesday passed a resolution to oppose any plan to create its benches in other parts of the state calling it a sheer wastage of money.
In a rebuff to the decades-old demand of HC benches in western and southern Odisha, the association has decided to take up the resolution with HC chief justice S Muralidhar before summer vacation begins on Friday.
“A delegation of the bar will meet the chief justice of Orissa HC with the resolution of the general body opposing any other high court bench either in southern or in western Odisha. After the HC reopens following the summer break, further development on the matter will be intimated to the general body,” Alok Prasad Nanda, secretary of the HC bar association, said.
Nanda said the bar is of the view that new benches would mean only wastage of public money on creating new infrastructure. “In the changed circumstances when counsels from remote parts of the state can participate in the proceedings of the Supreme Court and HCs, there is no need for new benches,” he said.
The HC bar resolution comes in the wake of a recent letter from Union law minister Kiren Rijiju to chief minister Naveen Panaik asking the CM to hold consultations with the chief justice of the HC and work out details such as land, building and residential accommodation of judges and staff for the proposed benches.
Advocates in other parts of the state, who have been demanding separate HC benches, called the HC resolution regressive. Kapil Patnaik, president of the Ganjam Bar Association, said it will discuss the HC bar resolution in its general body meeting within the next few days and take a decision on the future course of action.
Sushil Tripathy, secretary of the Ganjam Bar Association, said, “When the focus is on justice delivery on the doorstep, HC benches will help achieve that aspiration to a great extent.” The Orissa HC has 1.88 lakh pending cases as on Monday.
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