Lawyers’ Agitation: Camp Courts In Jails Across Odisha To Take Up Bail Pleas

Cuttack: With cases pilling up owing to the ongoing lawyers’ agitation, the Orissa High Court on Saturday asked to the District and Sessions Judges to open camp courts in jails across Odisha.

According to an official notification issued in this regard, criminal courts have to adhere to the following instructions while hearing the bail pleas of the accused in custody:

* The camp courts should be held inside the jails within working hours of each working day, it added.

* The identity of the accused shall be verified by the concerned jail superintendent/assistant jail superintendent as the case may be.

* In case of arrest and first production, the same be made in the camp court inside the jail.

* Where bail will be allowed, provisionally PR Bond be taken and the accused be asked to furnish regular surety bond after one/two months fixing a date for it.

* Similarly, the jail authorities concerned shall ensure that at the time of bail hearing, none apart from court staff and CSI are present.

* If a undertrial prisoner has completed period of custody in excess of the sentence likely to be awarded, Section 436-A CrPC may be followed.

The lawyers have been boycotting courts across the state, demanding the arrests of policemen who assaulted a Cuttack city advocate in the middle of a busy road in broad daylight on August 28.

On Friday, the Orissa High Court Bar Association said that it would continue the stir till October 30 and lawyers will burn the effigy of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at all Bars across the state the following day.