CUTTACK: The district judiciary in the State has taken great strides in handling cases in the last one year. Disposal of cases by the district judiciary has increased by over 116.02 per cent in 2022 as compared to 2021.The district courts disposed of 5,15,392 cases at a case clearance rate (CCR) of 93.20 per cent compared to 2,38,588 cases in 2021.
This was revealed by the Orissa High Court’s Annual Report-2022, which was released on the occasion of two-day District Judges’ Conference 2023 at the Odisha Judicial Academy here on Saturday.The conference was inaugurated by Justice Sanjiv Khanna of Supreme Court in presence of Chief Justice S Muralidhar of Orissa High Court.
Delivering the inaugural address Justice Sanjiv Khanna advised the district judges and judicial magistrates to guard against influence of internal biases and prejudices in adjudication while stressing the need to preserve the procedural rights for fair trial, protect individual liberty, promote accountability and strengthen the rule of law.On the release of annual report, Chief Justice Muralidhar said it showcases the wonderful work done by the judicial officers in the state. “I hope we can carry it forward”, he said.
Briefing on some aspects of the report the CJ said disposal of cases by high court increased by over 29.86 per cent compared to 2021 and 1,36,599 cases were disposed in 2022 at a CCR of 130.94 per cent as compared to 1,05,182 cases in 2021.Mentioning about increase in delivery of judgments, the CJ said 2,118 judgments were delivered by the high court in 2022 compared to 810 in 2021. Similarly, 1,61,263 judgments were delivered by the district courts in 2022 compared to 72,806 in 2021.
“The objective of releasing the annual report or report card is to make the Odisha judiciary more accountable to the people and more transparent in its functioning. It has earned appreciation of everyone nationally,” the CJ said.
The annual report highlighted key achievements of the judiciary in 2022, which include establishment of vulnerable witness deposition centres (VWDCs) in all districts of the state for enabling the witnesses to depose without any fear or intimidation. The year saw establishment of 34 paperless courts making Odisha the first state in the country where there are such facilities in all the districts. The aim is to transform every court in the state into a paperless one by end of 2023.
This apart, 10 district court digitization hubs were created in 10 places - Angul, Bhadrak, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Keonjhar, Koraput, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Nayagarh and Sonepur.The year also saw implementation of case load rationalisation across the district courts. Due to uneven distribution of cases across the state, some courts were overburdened with work, while some others had less work. This resulted in under-utilisation of the available judicial resources.