Cuttack: Orissa High Court has fixed April 23 to decide on the dispute over election of the chairman of the Odisha State Bar Council (OSBC).
The court has fixed the date after the process of submission of views by the members of the council was completed on Wednesday.
Advocate members of 156 bar associations across the state affiliated to the OSBC elect 25 members for a five-year term and these members elect the chairman, vice-chairman and the representative to Bar Council of India.
After election of members in June 2014, advocate Manas Ranjan Mohapatra was elected as chairman. However, Mohapatra resigned citing personal reasons in July 2017. The post has since remained vacant while vice-chairman Debadatta Mishra has been in charge. Initially, most of the elected members requested the Advocate General (who is an ex-officio member) to supervise the election for a new chairman.
Following delay in initiation of the election process due to alleged non-cooperation by a section of the members, the election was scheduled on January 21.
But the scheduled election hit a roadblock with the division bench of Chief Justice Vineet Saran and Justice B.R. Sarangi issuing an interim stay order on the holding of election of chairman of the state bar council just two days before it.The matter reached the high court with a member, Manas Kumar Chand, filing a petition seeking direction to all the members to co-operate with the Advocate General for holding the election.
But things turned awry when another member, Atma Prakash Mohanty, filed a petition questioning the capacity of the Advocate General to hold the council election to fill up the casual vacancy arising due to the resignation of the chairman.
While taking up the two petitions for analogous hearing, the court had sought the views of the members of the council.
When the matter came up for final hearing on Wednesday, Mohanty filed a fresh petition seeking direction for making member Chinmay Mohanty the chairman.
Taking note of it, the bench posted the matter to April 23 for final hearing.
