Cuttack: There are currently 13 vacancies of Judges in the Orissa High Court. While no one can give a clear indication of when these posts will be filled up, the High Court, however, has a higher disposal rate than in cases filed.
It may be mentioned here that there are 33 sanctioned posts of judges for the Orissa High Court, but now there are 20 Judges, including the acting Chief Justice.
Though the Supreme Court Collegium had recommended the name for filling up the chief justice’s post, the Centre is yet to take a decision on the issue. Therefore, it is uncertain when the notification regarding the appointment of the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court will be published.
Despite this, due to the proactive and positive attitude of other Judges, including the acting Chief Justice, the rate of disposal of cases remains high. Many experienced lawyers are hopeful that if all the posts of Judges will be filled up, the Orissa High Court would establish a new milestone in speedy delivery of justice.
From January 2023 to the end of November, 96,821 cases were filed in the Orissa High Court and 1,12,048 cases were disposed off. Of these, the number of criminal cases is said to be 42,900. At the end of last year, the number of pending cases in the Orissa High Court was 1,64,771, which had come down to 1,44,585 by November last year. If this rate of case disposal continues, the number of pending cases of the Orissa High Court may come down further by the end of this year. However, in the first 11 months of this year, the rate of disposal of cases in the Orissa High Court is said to be about 116 per cent.
According to sources, in the first 11 months of this year, the Orissa High Court has issued about two and a half thousand verdicts. Despite this, some other benches have reserved their verdicts for a long time. Since the number of judges is less than the number of cases, it is difficult to decide the number of cases that are listed before one judge in the list of every day’s hearings. Despite this, many judges have accepted lot of labor and are patiently hearing and disposing off the case.
However, in many cases, experienced legal experts are of the view that the number of cases are high due to the government filing of writ appeals by the government against the orders of the one-judge bench and the petitioner filing contempt of court cases against the government officials for the non-implementation of the court’s order. If the state government followed its own case policy, the number of cases in other Courts in the state, including the High Court, would have come down. At the same time, if the complaints and problems of the common people and employees could be resolved expeditiously at the administrative level, the number of cases would also have come down.