New building of high court in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Jan. 1: Orissa High Court will shift to a new seven-storey building from tomorrow. The building was inaugurated on November 11, 2012, by the then Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir.

The high court was established in Cuttack on July 26, 1948. Chief Justice of the Federal Court of India H.J. Kania inaugurated it on that day with Bira Kishore Ray as the Chief Justice and three other judges.

At present, 17 judges, including the Chief Justice, against a sanctioned strength of 22 have been functioning in the main building in 11 courtrooms.

High court registrar general J.P. Das told The Telegraph: “All the courts, including the court of the Chief Justice will sit in the new building from tomorrow.”

With 1.68 lakh sqft carpet area of the seven floors, the new building has come up at a cost of Rs 64 crore. The state government has provided the land and 50 per cent of the construction cost.

It has 22 courtrooms and 22 chambers along with lounges for judges with state-of-the-art facilities, including a conference hall, library and a security control room with closed-circuit television cameras in place. While the court of the Chief Justice will function on the second floor, four courts will function on each of four other floors.

On the ground floor, one hall equipped with all furniture having two rooms has been earmarked as High Court Bar Annexe for the exclusive use of the Bar members during court hours. A separate room has been assigned for senior counsels.

As safety measure, a court official said there would be a single entry and identity cards would be necessary for entry to the new high court building till biometric cards were issued for the purpose.

Normally outsiders would not be allowed to take entry to the building. However, on recommendation of the conducting counsel, maximum two persons will be allowed with entry passes, he said.

“The new building that has increased the number of court rooms is expected to help the court with more number of judges to deal with the increasing load of cases,” High Court Bar Association secretary Janmejaya Katikiya told The Telegraph.

The backlog of cases in the high court had gone up to over 3.5 lakh. At present, there are five vacancies in posts of judges against the sanctioned strength.