Berhampur, Aug. 27: The Ganjam Bar Association urged the state government to write to the Centre to initiate steps to set up an Orissa High Court permanent bench here without delay.

Yesterday, the association’s general body meeting was held here and it constituted a steering committee to finalise the future course of action. The committee consists of members of the present body, former presidents and secretaries, advisory body of the last committee and two state bar council members, said association president Kapileswar Patnaik.

“The Jaswant Singh Commission, constituted by the Centre in 1981 to examine the question of having high court benches, in its report on April 20, 1985, concluded that, if need be, additional benches could be set up wherever necessary. It also laid down several guidelines, which were to be fulfilled by the states concerned, regarding setting up a permanent high court bench. The guidelines are mainly related to providing infrastructure facilities such as court halls, judges chambers, adequate employees and so on,” he said.

The state government, he said, should immediately send a proposal to the Centre to have a bench in Berhampur. The association rejected setting up of the Justice C.R. Pal Commission, which the state government constituted in 2008 to look into the demand for a special permanent bench. The commission was set up on March 11, 2008, following agitation by lawyers from various parts of the state for an Orissa High Court bench.

“The Centre accepted the Jaswant commission’s report. The C.R. Pal Commission cannot overrule the recommendations of the Justice Jaswant Singh Commission,” Patnaik said. The association will write to chief minister Naveen Patnaik in this regard.

The association has also condemned the high court bar association for opposing establishment of the bench elsewhere in the state, he said.

Association secretary Sitanshu Sekhar Panda said Naveen had assured them to establish a high court bench in Berhampur in 1997, when he was the Union minister of steel and mines. “Former President V.V. Giri and former chief minister Biju Patnaik had openly supported the demand for setting up of a high court bench in Berhampur,” he said.

A member of the South Odisha Students’ Association said cases from their region constituted more than 30 per cent of the total cases in Orissa High Court.

The geographical spread of south Odisha makes the need of a high court bench in Berhampur an inevitable one. Berhampur had all necessary infrastructure. The Union law ministry and the state government must expedite the process of establishment of the high court bench in Berhampur, he said.