This week, on July 19, 2026, the Orissa High Court will bid farewell to Justice Krishna Shripad Dixit upon his superannuation. For lawyers across two states, the occasion carries a quieter, more personal resonance: it marks the end of a chapter for a judge whose brief but impactful tenure on this Bench — just fourteen months after his transfer from the Karnataka High Court in May 2025 — left an impression far greater than its duration might suggest.
His retirement inevitably invites a comparison that lawyers of my generation find irresistible, one that touches the heart of why this Bar still misses one judge and is about to begin missing another. A decade ago, Justice V. Gopala Gowda — who had earlier served as Chief Justice of this very Court from 2010 to 2012 before his elevation to the Supreme Court — retired with the enduring epithet of “the people’s judge.” That reputation was forged through judgments on land acquisition, workers’ compensation, and the right to livelihood, delivered with a deep and unmistakable sympathy for the ordinary citizen against the machinery of the state. The Orissa Bar has missed him ever since he left Cuttack, and it is about to miss Justice Dixit in much the same way.
Justice Dixit brought a different judicial temperament — more austere and technically rigorous — yet he shared with Justice Gowda the one quality that ultimately distinguishes a competent judge from a truly memorable one: an unwavering allegiance to the Constitution that yielded neither to the comfort of the Bench nor the convenience of the Bar.
A Career Built on Range, Not Repetition
Justice Dixit’s judicial journey began on the Karnataka High Court in February 2018, following nearly three decades at the Bar specialising in election law, service law, and agrarian reform. That foundation is evident in the remarkable breadth of matters he handled. He sat on Benches that decided the Hijab case, disputes over online gaming, GST issues involving set-top boxes and university exemptions, the reclamation of encroached forest land, minimum wages for labourers, pensioners’ rights, and the state’s duty to protect public property. He also authored judgments on subjects that seldom appear in law reports with such sensitivity: the breastfeeding rights of lactating mothers and the duty of adult children to maintain their aged parents — matters that required reconciling the letter of the law with the dignity of the citizen.
When he arrived in Cuttack in May 2025, Odisha’s lawyers had little time to acclimatise to his style. Yet even in that short span, a Division Bench on which he sat delivered a ruling of lasting significance for service jurisprudence: an employee permanently absorbed into a post under a government absorption policy cannot thereafter be treated as remaining on deputation, rendering any subsequent repatriation or redeployment on that basis impermissible. Though not a headline-grabbing decision, it quietly safeguards thousands of government employees from administrative expediency disguised as policy — the kind of precise, unglamorous work that upholds the integrity of service law.
Lawyers also came to respect his firm approach to contempt applications against the state. By imposing costs on the government for delayed counters and prolonged non-compliance with writ petitions, he sent an unmistakable message: the rule of law prevails in this Court, and state functionaries cannot ignore its orders with impunity.
The Feeling in the Courtroom
Lawyers at this Bar carry a particular memory from two eras separated by more than a decade yet linked by the same distinctive quality: Justice Gopala Gowda’s years as Chief Justice and Justice Dixit’s brief but memorable tenure. In both periods, there was an unusual sense that this was a constitutional court that truly listened to and understood the plight of the ordinary litigant. Young lawyers never entered either courtroom with a knot in their stomachs. There was no dread of humiliation for a faltering submission, nor fear of being cut short before a point could be made. Whatever the outcome, counsel routinely left with a quiet sense of satisfaction — simply because they had been heard with patience and treated with courtesy.
Many young advocates made it a point to sit in Justice Dixit’s court even when they had no matter listed, because observing him — the questions he posed, the way he tested arguments, and the care with which he crafted orders — offered an education in law and courtcraft unmatched by any classroom.
Why Lawyers Remember Some Judges and Forget Others
After more than twenty-five years at this Bar, I have appeared before judges whose names I now struggle to recall and a handful whose courtrooms remain vivid in memory. What separates the two is rarely mere legal correctness — most competent judges get the law right most of the time. What lingers is temperament: whether the judge truly listened before deciding, whether the courtroom felt like a place where argument could still shape outcome, and whether power was exercised with justification rather than mere assertion.
The finest judges, as recent scholarship on judicial greatness suggests, are neither faceless rule-appliers nor unaccountable free spirits. They are craftsmen who wield the traditional tools of precedent, procedure, and statutory text in service of something larger. Justice Dixit’s record — from the Hijab matter in Karnataka to the absorption-versus-deputation question in Odisha — reflects precisely this balance: meticulous doctrinal rigour applied across an unusually wide docket, without shortcuts that might ease judicial life but shorten judicial legacies.
It would be dishonest to claim universal acclaim. Like every judge, he had his admirers and detractors. Yet the Bar, taken as a whole and over time, remains the most reliable judge of judges. Its collective assessment tends to outlast the sting of any single verdict. In a Court blessed with many brilliant minds on both the Bench and the Bar, it is worth remembering that intellectual brilliance alone does not make a great judge. What is also required is a boldness of spirit — the willingness to stand by constitutional values even when doing so is inconvenient, unpopular, or costly. That quality is in regrettably short supply today, and its absence is a loss this institution should not ignore.
What This Bar Owes Its Departing Judges
The Orissa Bar will miss both Justice Gopala Gowda’s example and Justice Dixit’s presence for the same fundamental reason: each, in his own way, treated the Constitution — not political convenience, institutional comfort, or the path of least resistance — as the ultimate arbiter of judicial conscience.
To Justice Krishna Shripad Dixit, on behalf of a Bar that had him only briefly yet will not soon forget him: a dignified and well-earned retirement.
(Views expressed by the columnist are personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of the news portal)