Western Orissa High court Bench Demand

ON western Orissa High Court Bench Issues, Sambalpur 29/09/2011

In the interest of justice, what is wrong with that if that demand is being made? This is the most common and popular opinion for the establishment of a High Court Bench in Western Odisha.


“In the matter of high court bench matter, it is the parliament to make law in that regard. For that it is necessary to pass a resolution in state legislature in that regard. There is a report from Justice Jaswant Singh commission encoding a yardstick for having region to be entitled for having a high court bench. There is also a rule of law principled in a reported judgment 1992 O.L.R. vol.1 344 wherein, it is held that state legislature has no authority to make law in the matter of establishment of bench of high court. Where state is found to be lacking with authority to make law in the matter of establishment of high court bench, then under what authority state government appointed one man commission to look into the high court bench issue. If a report would come out then how much lawful such report would be? And as per the notice pasted on the clip board then again we are going laid an agitation and picketing different offices and court..But how long will we keep the stone turning or else we will sit with our finger crossed and as a silent witness. We must stick to our guns and must stick with it. We must catch the bull by the horns and be aware of loud mouthed spokesperson who unnecessarily take the mileage and promise the moon. I hope you understand it better. Only compelling, cogent and convincing grounds may justify the for a demand for a high court bench. But entertaining a desire to shifting of a bench in caviler fashion or on whim or caprice to please a group of people is neither wholesome nor desirable.”
Union Law and Justice Minister M Veerapa Moily assured to set up a bench of Orissa High Court at Sambalpur on 2010.

Addressing advocates of Sambalpur District Bar Association (SDBA), the minister said, ‘If at all there will be a bench of the High Court, it will be in Sambalpur.
‘I feel the necessity of a High Court bench in this backward region of the state,’ he added.

Advocates, common people of the region and leaders of all parties have been demanding setting up of a permanent bench of the High Court at Sambalpur since long.
The then Union Law Minister on July 14 had said that a bench of High Court of Orissa would be set up in Western Orissa. Later in a resolution passed in the general meeting of Orissa High Court Bar Association (OHCBA) the bar had condemned Moily’s statement stated as unfortunate and went on strike.
The then ,president of Sambalpur Bar Association Advocate Niranjan Tripathy said that the OHCBA is misinterpreting the Jaswant Committee report and the decision of Bhawani Shankar Tripathy vs. the State of Orissa where a division bench had taken the view that the existing High Should not be shifted.

Criticizing the stand taken by the OHCBA the then General Secretary Sambalpur Bar Association Dilip Kumar Bishi said that the OHCBA is wrong in saying that a bench cannot be established within a radius of 500 kms from the existing court as well as at least one third cases should originate from the place where the new bench is sought to be established is totally wrong. Giving the example of the formation of Orissa High Court from Patna High Court he said that at that time less than four per cent cases of Orissa were pending in Patna High Court.
Briefing the bar about the history regarding the controversy of setting up a High Court Bench in Sambalpur the Secretary and other senior members of the bar stated that the struggle of establishing a High Court started in the year 1959 when some Bar Association of western part of Orissa took an initiative to start a circuit court in Sambalpur, and from the year 1993 the existing Bar Associations are demanding a permanent bench. In the year 2004 again 37 Bar Associations of western part of Orissa approached the government to establish a permanent bench of High Court in Sambalpur. The members also said that in 1989 election setting up a bench of High Court at Sambalpur was part of the election manifesto of the then Janata Dal headed by ex Chief Minister Biju Patnaik.

But who moves a Court? Only the disadvantaged peoples move the Courts.
When a person is disadvantaged by some other person(s) or system, he or she moves an appropriate Court for justice. A severely disadvantaged person, whose life and liberty fall into jeopardy, needs the High Court.
But seeking justice from the High Court of Orissa is often more disadvantageous than the disadvantage a litigant wants removed, if he or she does not live in or around the City of Cuttack, where the High Court sits.
To move the High Court one needs a lawyer who practices there. And, once a lawyer is fixed, the litigant falls into a labyrinth where he / she seldom finds the remedy within reach. The more eminent the lawyer the more becomes the cost of his advice and service and the more distant becomes the horizon of justice.
Let me cite an instance of how litigants from remote corners of the State feel suffocated by depending on lawyers of Cuttack. A young friend from Sambalpur, name not mentioned, disadvantaged in the matter of his rank in government service, had requested me to recommend an efficient lawyer of Cuttack, whom he should hand over his case.

Like all highlanders, name not mentioned is a simple natured upright person. And such a person usually does not like to be deliberately harassed by another person or any authority. And highlanders are by orientation too law abiding to resort to ‘Bijuism’ against miscreant mandarins in administrative offices.
Bijuism is a typical synonym of hooliganism.

When Chief Minister after decades long public rejection, Biju Patnaik was instigating the peoples of Orissa for beating the bureaucrats as and when any of them was hit by any bad orders issued by any office.
It had given birth to such anarchy that his own secretariat staff had assaulted Biju himself and the peoples of Orissa had thrashed him to dustbin in the subsequent elections.
So a person like name not mentioned could never have resorted to Bijuism to avenge the injustice he was subjected to. The only best remedy a man like him could have besought was moving the Court for justice.
And, the appropriate Court (for him the High Court) was situated in Cuttack. This is why he had wanted me to find out a Cuttack based lawyer for him.
Amongst my many lawyer friends of Cuttack there is a senior one who is nationally well known and whom I personally respect. I asked him if he could help. He agreed. I informed name not mentioned. He came from Sambalpur with his file. The lawyer perused it and agreed to take up the case. He did not charge any consultation fee; but specified the amount that he would take in advance to conduct the case. The entire amount of money that he had demanded was paid in my presence.
The case was filed, was admitted and was registered vide a number of 2002.
And, the matter perhaps rests there.
Till date, name not mentioned has visited the lawyer many times and every time has paid for the juniors of the senior lawyer. But till date he has not been informed of any development.
How long is the period from 2002 to 2009?
The Court has many cases to settle and the lawyer has many cases to handle, he hears whenever he visits the chamber of the lawyer.
Who can stop the delay?
Should the lawyer not honestly say as to whether any case registered after this case in the year 2002 has so far been taken up or not?
Should the lawyer not think of the distance of Cuttack from Sambalpur and the turmoil his client must be going through during fruitless journeys in pursuit of justice?
Why he is not explaining him the real reason of delay?
As a man who had recommended this ‘eminent’ lawyer to name not mentioned, I am deeply embarrassed over the lackadaisical manner the seeker of justice is being treated with.
But this is not a solitary case.

This is just a sample of how peoples are being harassed because of the geographical distance of the citadel of justice from their places of dwelling.
On the other hand, the lawyers practicing in peripheral Courts suffer from acute mental agony when the inordinate delay in disposal of the appeal cases preferred by their clients in the High Court under their advice eclipses their professional credibility in the eyes of the persons disadvantaged by the lower Court verdict(s).
Had the High Court been having a bench at Sambalpur, peoples like name not mentioned might have pursued their cases through the lawyers of their locality. Cost of litigation should have drastically been less and the legal fraternity of Sambalpur side of Orissa could have earned utmost satisfaction out of their ability to professionally help their clients up to the highest stage of jurisprudence in the State.
I support the demand for a bench of Orissa High Court at Sambalpur and specifically at Sambalpur for the very reason that it is the peoples of Sambalpur that had facilitated creation of Orissa High Court.
It is here the peoples had revolted against disadvantage caused to them in seeking justice when Hindi was promulgated on 15.1.1895 as the court language by the then Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces to which the British had arbitrarily annexed the Sambalpur district.
The peoples’ movement for restoration of their mother tongue Oriya as the Court language so that justice shall not stay beyond their reach had made the British to review the position.

In July 1901, the peoples of Sambalpur District had placed their specific demands before the new Chief commissioner Sir Andrew Fraser, wherein they had stressed that if the Government does not appreciate to restore Oriya language in the Sambalpur District under the plea that it may be inconvenient for the administration to have a particular District of the Central Provinces managed by a language different from that of the province, the Sambalpur District be immediately separated from the CP and be merged in the Oissa Division.

Sir Fraser extensively traveled throughout the Sambalpur District and noted the stark disadvantage the peoples were pushed into by denial of justice in their language and by keeping Courts out of their reach.
He sent to the Government of India a thorough report depicting the correctness of the peoples’ demand and suggested that the Sambalpur District should be separated from CP, “if it was thought impossible to have Oriya as the language of one of the Central provinces”.

Kula Gaurav Madhu Sudan Das on behalf of the Oriyas of Sambalpur moved a memorandum to the Government strengthening the same with Fraser’s findings, which the British Officer had also elaborated in his work “With the Rajas and Rayats”.
Though the Government did not agree to separate Sambalpur from CP, it decided to desist from keeping the Courts beyond the peoples’ reach and restored Oriya as the Court Language.
This administrative experience latter convinced the British to agree to restoration of Oriya speaking tracks to a Province and thus modern Orissa was created as the first State of India created on the basis of mother tongue.
Had there been no modern Orissa, there would never have been the High Court of Orissa.
To keep peoples of Sambalpur devoid of getting a bench of the Orissa High Court is not only an offense against the people of that area, but also an offense against history.
The entire population of Orissa must support the Sambalpur lawyers who are leading the most justified demand of the people who in fact had contributed their best to birth of Orissa.

Dr Pramod Rath now the president of Sambalpur Bar Association stands on the High Court bench Demand at Sambalpur “Lambasting the government for its apathetic toward their demand. DR Rath said: “We were forced to resort to this move. We have been agitating for more than thirty five years. But the government has turned a deaf ear to our longstanding and genuine demand.”

While discussing the question, "why a separate High Court Bench is needed in Western Odisha", these solid points come up.

1) Cuttack (where the only High Court of Odisha works) is too far from the people of Kalahandi, Sambalpur, Balangir and Sundergarh. The lack of proper communication aggravates the problems further.

2) There is a vernacular language problem. Although people of Western Odisha study in Odia language, their communicating language remains Sambalpuri or Koshli. The rural people basically do not have an access to the Odia book language, which is widely spoken in Cuttack. Most of the times, they lose the cases, as they cannot explain their stand on several issues.

3) Acute poverty is also one of the reason.

Establishment of a High Court Bench in Western Odisha will create a lot of opportunities for the western Odisha lawyers as well as the clients. This historic step will be an answer to many unanswered questions that include the denial of justice to many people from this region.

With the sort of track record of the government , some people are cynical of the establishment of the High court Bench at Sambalpur. What is Behind the move shall unfold only the committee at the central level starts studying ( READBARGAINING) and the kind of people in the central committee, its too early to celebrate it. May wisdom prevails and everything goes well , otherwise people might not stick to the Gandhian means which so far adopted. They have tasted something strange now. We are still sitting in the tinder box.

Siddhartha Shankar Mishra,
Bureau Chief, These Days, Orissa,
Sambalpur
PH - +919937965779