CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Tuesday directed Sambalpur SP to ensure that lawyers willing to attend work are not prevented from entering the court premises as part of the ongoing strike under the banner of Sambalpur District Bar Association.
The Bar Association has been spearheading the strike since September 5 for establishment of a bench of Orissa High Court in Western Odisha. Consequently, normal functioning of various judicial courts had not been possible till date. The court was hearing a PIL filed by lawyer Shivsankar Mohanty in November last year.
The division bench of Chief Justice KS Jhaveri and Justice KR Mohapatra issued the direction after Mohanty mentioned before it that as part of the ongoing agitation, lawyers were being allowed to go to court to conduct cases in bail matters and injunction in civil cases only.
The association was also forcing closure of all Central Government and State Government offices, including all financial organisations/institutions and judicial and revenue courts of Sambalpur on the last three working days of a month.
The Bench further directed the State Bar Council (which had been made a party in the case) to file an affidavit on the ongoing strike in Sambalpur by December 2, the date fixed for next hearing on the PIL.
The PIL had sought the Court’s intervention against the ongoing lawyers’ strike in Sambalpur on the ground that it violated an order issued by the High Court on April 15, 2008.
The petition stated that in a similar situation, the High Court in its April 15, 2008 order had directed the Superintendent of Police, Sambalpur to ensure that the lawyers are prevented from obstructing either the judicial officers or the members of the litigant public or the willing lawyers from entering the court premises”.
On April 29, the High Court had issued another order had ruled, “Considering the gravity of the matter, and in view of the long-standing strike called by lawyers of Sambalpur district, the court directs that it would be open for the litigants to move applications before this court for transfer of their matters there at Sambalpur Judgeship to any other nearest district, which will be considered accordingly”.