Members of All Odisha Lawyers’ Association at a news conference in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar/ Cuttack, July 23: Hundreds of litigants suffered as district court and Orissa High Court lawyers observed ceasework to protest against the recent brutal attack on one of their colleagues in the state capital.

While the ceasework in Bhubaneswar entered the third day today, high court lawyers, too, joined the agitation today to express solidarity.

Among the hundreds of cases that the high court was not able to proceed further was the petition of 78-year-old Dhanamat Bhoi seeking intervention for rehabilitation of 154 families displaced for setting up the ordnance factory at Saintala in Balangir district.

The petition filed in 2010 was listed for hearing after several months. But the court could not take up the case for hearing due to the ceasework by lawyers. “The Balangir collector was expected to file an affidavit giving details about the basis adopted for dividing displaced families into two categories — one for jobs and another for compensation for land acquired for the ordnance factory in early 1980s,” Dhanamat’s counsel A.K. Mishra said.

More than 600 cases listed before different benches could not be taken up for hearing. Over 70 bail applications went without hearing. Several left over cases from the weekly list drawn up on Monday for today also faced the same fate.

For Sasmita Parichha, a member of Kaladi gram panchayat in Mayurbhanj district it was a day lost. She had filed a petition more than a week ago seeking intervention for implementation of Kalo irrigation project to provide water to the farm lands in the villages in her panchayat.

“The irrigation project was announced in 1976. The petitioner has moved the high court after several representations to the authorities concerned failed to yield result. A preliminary hearing on her plea was expected today. But that did not happen,” Sasmita's counsel S. Behera said.

High Court Bar Association secretary Bidyadhar Pradhan said: “We have abstained from court work today to express solidarity with the Bhubaneswar Bar Association’s agitation.”

“At a general body meeting, members had unanimously condemned the brutal attack of police on the practicing lawyer of the Bhubaneswar Bar Association Nihar Ranjan Sethy, who is also a member of the High Court Bar Association,” Pradhan said.

In Bhubaneswar, the lawyers demanded a third party inquiry into the attack on Nihar Ranjan Sethy on July 16 after the commissionerate police claimed that video footages captured from a bar and elsewhere showed that the victim was not beaten up by the police.

Sethy had alleged that the police had attacked him on Mahatab Road, while he was returning home and he sustained severe injuries to his private parts. The Badagada police had registered a case after advocates staged a protest on Friday. As the protesters had turned violent, they attacked a police jeep and set it on fire.

The police commissioner had assured the lawyers that he would investigate the matter and within 48 hours the accused cops would be arrested. However, the police released video footages showing Sethy in an inebriated state and said that he was rescued by a PCR van. All Odisha Lawyers’ Association today demanded an inquiry either by a sitting judge of the high court or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the Human Rights Commission.

“The police should be taken as one party in this case and an inquiry by a third party will be more appropriate,” said Gyanaranjan Mohanty, general secretary of the association. The advocates said that police released the footages that tried to show the incident was nothing but a mere accident. “But they don’t have any answer about what happened to Sethy before he was rescued by the PCR van. Besides police seizure materials show that there are foot marks on Sethy’s shirt that indicates that he had been kicked,” said Tarunkanti Mohapatra, president of the Bhubaneswar Bar Association. They demanded compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the victim as he had been severely injured in his private part and the government must bear his treatment expenses.