#cuttack highcourt foundationday

[lalmohanpatnaik]

From Circuit Court to High Court

During the colonial rule, Orissa was part of the Bengal province under the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court. The British government formed the new province of Bihar & Orissa on March 22, 1912. But the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court continued over Orissa till the Patna High Court came into existence.

Records related to the history of Orissa High Court say the territory of Bihar and Orissa were earlier under the jurisdiction of the High Court of judicature of Fort William (Calcutta) in Bengal. A letter patent issued on February 16, 1916, by King George V constituted the High Court of Judicature at Patna in the province of Bihar and Orissa.

Patna High Court started functioning with seven judges including the Chief Justice and a Circuit Court for Odisha began functioning in Cuttack three months later.

The Circuit court in Cuttack was the precursor of Orissa High Court. It had its first sitting on May 18, 1916. It was the first of its kind in India and was somewhat an experiment.

Barrister Madhusudan Das was the president of the Cuttack Bar Association at that time. In his address welcoming the move, Das expressed hope that the circuit court would become a permanent bench for Orissa in future.

On April 1, 1936, Orissa was made a separate province, but it was not given a separate high court. What followed was a growing demand for Orissa to have its own High Court with several representations being submitted to the Government. On July 26, 1938 the High Court Bar Association at Cuttack adopted a Resolution demanding a separate High Court for Orissa.

Subsequently, the Government of Orissa by a resolution on August 15, 1942 constituted a committee to examine a question of establishing a High Court for Orissa. This committee comprised Bira Kishore Ray (the then Advocate General) as Chairman, Bichitrananda Das (Member of Legislative Assembly), Rai Bahadur Chintamani Acharya (President of High Court Bar Association), D.N. Narsingh Rao (Advocate) as Members and J.E. Maher (Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs) as the Secretary.

The Committee’s report was published on December 31 1943. Consequent upon the government accepting the Committee’s recommendations the Governor of Orissa submitted an address to the Governor General of India on March 3, 1948 that a High Court, be constituted for the Province of Orissa.

According to the records the Governor-General of India issued the Orissa High Court Order on April 30, 1948. It provided for constitution of the High Court for the Province of Orissa from July 5, 1948. Then, by Orissa High Court (Amendment) Order 1948 the date of formation was changed and H.J. Karania, the then Chief Justice of the Federal Court of India, inaugurated Orissa High Court on July 26, 1948.

The High Court started functioning with four Judges including  B.K.Ray as the Chief Justice with 1900 cases. As of January 31,2021, the sanctioned number of judges stood at 27. By the time of its 75th foundation day on July 26th, 2022, it stands further increased to 33 (22 permanent judges and 11 additional Judges) and the number of cases pending before it was over 1.8 lakh.

According to the annual report published by the high court in February 2022 after a gap of six years the formal alteration of the name of the state from ‘Orissa’ to ‘Odisha’ was made effective by the Orissa (Alteration of Name) Act, 2011. The Government of Odisha on 21st March 2012, issued the Odisha Adaptation of Laws Order, 2012 making it effective from 1st November 2011. The above change was reflected by the corresponding changes in the text of the Constitution of India. However, the corresponding change in the name of the High Court awaits the change to the Orissa High Court Order, 1948, the report said.

A new building of the Orissa High Court was inaugurated on November 11, 2012. Functioning of court proceedings was shifted to the new seven-storey building on January 2, 2014. With 1.68 lakh sq ft carpet area, the new building has 22 courtrooms and 22 chambers for judges along with lounges for them and other state-of-the-art facilities. The century-old court building has now been designated as a heritage building.