CUTTACK: Justice V Narasingh, Justice Biraja Prasanna Satapathy and Justice Murahari Sri Raman were sworn in as Orissa High Court judges on Monday. The judges were administered the oath of office by Chief Justice S Muralidhar in a simple ceremony on the High Court premises.
Justice Narasingh, Justice Satapathy and Justice Raman were elevated from the Bar. With their joining, the number of judges in the High Court has gone up to 21 against the sanctioned strength of 27. Starting his career as a lawyer in the High Court in 1989, Justice Narasingh served as additional standing counsel and additional government advocate for the State government. He also worked as counsel for CBI and received the Haricharan Mukherjee Memorial Gold Medal in 2004 for outstanding performance and maintaining high standard of professional ethics as a lawyer.
After starting independent practice in 1997, Justice Satapathy dealt with cases of all branches of law, particularly service and civil matters. Justice Raman started practice in 1997. He was empanelled additional standing counsel for Commercial Tax Organisation before his elevation as judge of the High Court.
Persisting large number of vacancies in the High Court has been attributed to be the foremost reason for high backlog of cases as matters are not taken up for hearing for months. As on February 10, 2022 the number of cases pending in the High Court was 2,01,107.