Chief Justice S Muralidhar Of Orissa High Court Retires; Justice Subhasis Talapatra To Succeed

Cuttack: Chief Justice of Orissa High Court S Muralidhar retired on Monday. He had served as the Chief Justice of the Court for over two years and seven months.

Justice Subhasis Talapatra, who will succeed justice Muralidhar, will be sworn in as the new chief justice on Tuesday. He is the senior-most Judge of the Orissa High Court.

Justice Muralidhar attended the Full Court Reference this afternoon, which was called by the Court for giving him farewell, as he demitted office on superannuation. The outgoing Chief Justice expressed his gratitude to his colleagues at the Orissa high court and elsewhere for their support, with a special mention of justice (retired) Akil Kureshi, former Chief Justice of Rajasthan high court who was present on the occasion.

“I consider myself most fortunate to have been sent to this wonderful State of Odisha as its Chief Justice. Those who do not know enough about Odisha and we have been persuading them to visit us are stunned, astounded by richness of Odisha, of the humaneness of the people of Odisha, of the culture, of the traditions, of the spirits of people of Odisha.”

The outgoing Chief Justice Muralidhar took oath as Chief Justice of Orissa HC on January 4, 2021. During his tenure, he took several measures including new ones in the state judicial system. He introduced Paperless Courts with the Court of the Chief Justice being the first in the state.

Inauguration of e-filing web portal on April 5 this year, establishment of 20 virtual courts in the state, live streaming of the hearing of cases on High Court’s official YouTube channel from August 2, 2021, digitisation of records for effective preservation, setting up of Judicial Archives and Museum of Justice are some of Justice S Muralidhar’s notable contributions.

As many as 57 Paperless Courts in Phase III and four newly established Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) at Cuttack, Puri, Jajpur and Bhubaneswar to deal with cases under POCSO Act and rape cases were inaugurated on August 1 in virtual mode by Justice Muralidhar in presence of Justice Subhasis Talapatra, Chief Justice-Designate, and Chairperson of Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology Committee of the High Court.