Senior Advocate Ashok Mohapatra on Saturday was elected as the president of the Odisha High Court Bar Association. Polling 865 votes, he defeated two other candidates, Srikant Naik and Jagabandhu Sahu, exactly by same margins of 66 votes as both Naik and Sahu ended up polling only 799 votes each. Similarly, newly-appointed Standing Counsel of the State Government lalatendu Samantray was elected as the vice-president of the association. Samantray (1,352 votes) defeated Srinibas Mohanty (1,075 votes) in a direct contest.
While Bijay Kumar Ragad was elected as the secretary, Karunakar Das was elected as the joint secretary. Apart from the elections of two assistant secretaries, Rupesh Kanungo and Nikunja Deo (library), nine executive body members were also elected. Nearly 2,500 bar members participated in polls.