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Two judges take oath

CUTTACK: In its over 50 years of existence, the Orissa High Court on Thursday had a record number of judges when two more additional judges were sworn in to have as many as 19 numbers of judges in its bench for the first time.

Chief Justice A.K. Ganguly administered the oath of office to Justice Lalit Mohan Mishra and Justice Bijay Kumar Patel at a simple function. With these appointments, the strength of the judges in the High Court has gone up to 19, leaving yet another three sanctioned posts of judges vacant.

State Law Minister B.B. Harichandan, Higher Education Minister Samir Dey, chief secretary A.K. Tripathy, Home Secretary T.K. Mishra, State DGP G.C. Nanda, other judges of the High Court, advocate general B.K. Mahanti and members of the Bar were present at the swearing-in ceremony.

In the absence of sufficient judges, pending cases in the High Court was mounting and the trustworthiness of judiciary institution was also questioned at several forums. Even the High Court Bar on several occasions had boycotted the court demanding appointment of sufficient judges.

According to Bar sources, the High Court currently has nearly two lakh cases pending while various sub-ordinate and tribunals in the State have over 10 lakh cases pending disposal.

Looking at the backlog of cases in the State, the National Law Commission in 2002 recommended increasing the strength of the judges in the High Court to 27 to take care of the pending cases.

The Orissa government, however, agreed to increase the strength to only 22.

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