CUTTACK: Orissa High Court Chief Justice S Muralidhar on Wednesday inaugurated the office of Judicial Infrastructure Management Agency (JIMA), a dedicated Division established by the State government in consultation with the High Court, on the premises of Circle Office of the Roads & Buildings department here. The idea of a separate entity to deal with judicial infrastructure was mooted at a conference of Chief Justices held in April, 2022 in New Delhi. JIMA, the first of its kind in the country, could be seen as a response by the Odisha government at the State level to address the need.
As adequate and quality infrastructure has direct impact on administration of justice and as physical infrastructure like buildings of the court complexes and residential quarters of judges and staffs form an important component of the judicial infrastructure, the function of JIMA would be to exclusively manage the construction and maintenance of all such infrastructure of the State.
JIMA, comprising engineers and architects, will act as a nodal agency for monitoring of physical and financial status of the infrastructure projects of the State Judiciary. Besides, it will look after project preparation, drawing and design, architecture, procurement, award of contracts, engineering supervision for new projects and also take care of maintenance and renovation of the existing projects and the annual maintenance contracts.
Chairman, High Court’s Building Committee for the High Court projects Justice Jaswant Singh, Chairman, High Court’s Building Committee for the Subordinate Court Justice BR Sarangi, along with members of both the Building Committees and the Judges of Orissa High Court, Chief Advisor to Chief Minister Dr R Balakrishna and Principal Secretary, Finance Vishal Dev were present.