The striking lawyers of the Orissa High Court on Monday decided to toughen their stand in protest against the inadequate number of judges in the High Court. At a general body meeting of the High Court Bar Association here, the members decided to continue their cease-work stir for another week, launch hunger strike from Tuesday, not to file any fresh case and restrain the clients from conducting their own cases.
The lawyers have been boycotting the court since February 12 protesting against the vacancies of judges in the court and the problems they are facing in listing important matters for hearing.
Against a sanctioned strength of 27 judges, the High Court now has only 16, including the Chief Justice. While there has been no judge appointments here since May 2015, over 1.72 lakh cases, including PIls, were pending here till December 2017.
“As we understood that no concrete step has yet been taken to address our grievances, we have decided to continue our cease-work stir till February 23. We have also decided to toughen our stand by resorting to hunger strike from February 20 and shall not file any fresh case,” informed the Bar Association secretary Satyabrata Mohanty, adding that the clients would also be restrained from entering into court rooms to conduct their own cases.
Mohanty further said that lawyers of Cuttack city would also be urged to extend their support to the cause of the High Court Bar Association. “All Bar Associations located in Cuttack will be requested for passing appropriate resolutions in this regard,” Mohanty said.
There are at least 14 other courts and tribunals, including permanent Benches of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and State Administrative Tribunal (SAT), in the city.