Form Panel In A Week To Resolve Police-Lawyer Dispute, HC Tells Odisha Govt

Cuttack: In the wake of the month-long agitation by the lawyers of the High Court Bar Association demanding action against police assault on a lawyer in Cuttack on August 28, the Orissa High Court has asked the Odisha government to form a high-level committee within a week to prevent a recurrence.

A division bench of Justice Chitta Ranjan Das issued the directive while hearing a petition of Debi Prasad Patnaik on Friday. The bench also asked the government to direct the committee to frame specific guidelines for the lawyers.

The committee will have the additional chief secretary, Home, Director General of Police (DGP), IG, Headquarters, Police Commissioner as members while the president and secretary of the Orissa High Court Bar Association will be the ex-officio members.

Besides, three advocates selected by the executive body of the Orissa High Court Bar Association will be the members of the committee out of whom two members must be recognised as senior advocates with minimum 35-40 years of practice experience, the bench ruled.

It further made it clear that no advocate member of the proposed committee should be a member of any political party.

The committee should be constituted in seven days from the date of receipt of this order and the government shall give its report within two months of their first meeting, the bench added.

It also said that the non-official members of the committee shall be given TA and DA at the rate applicable to the Advocate General for each day’s sitting. The recommendation of the committee shall be scrutinized judicially after it is received with the assistance and submissions by the members of the Bar who may volunteer to submit before the court in the matter. The committee shall suggest ways and means and modalities for checking recurrence of such incident in future.

The bench posted the next hearing on this matter on January 19.