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Regular-article-logo Friday, 18 July 2025

Pending cases cross 3 lakh

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LALMOHAN PATNAIK Published 09.12.12, 12:00 AM

Cuttack, Dec. 8: Orissa High Court cannot take it anymore!

The number of cases pending before the court has gone up to over 3.22 lakh. To make matters worse, there is an additional piling up of cases every week as their disposal falls far behind the number of cases filed.

The high court is also suffering because of non-compliance of various court orders by the Odisha government, which is resulting in an increasing number of contempt cases.

Judges feel the problem of backlog of cases can only be tackled if the court gets its sanctioned number of judges.

“The number of cases pending before Orissa High Court has gone up to over three lakh and the number of cases instituted every day has far exceeded the number of cases disposed because of the absence of the sanctioned number of judges,” Justice A.K. Patnaik, judge of Supreme Court, said at a high court meeting here recently.

At present, there are 12 judges in Orissa High Court against a sanctioned strength of 22. With disposal being far less in number than filing, about 400 additional cases are reportedly piling up and accumulating as pending cases every week.

A section of the lawyers believe non-compliance of court orders by the Odisha government, both in replying to notices and in implementing orders, have made things worse. Replies to notices are often not filed in time or delayed inordinately, which holds up adjudication of the cases. Also, court orders are not complied with in many cases, which subsequently results in petitioners filing contempt applications.

Of the over 3.22 lakh pending cases, about a lakh are petitions arising out of original cases either because of delay in adjudication or contempt.

“The non-compliance of orders was resulting in litigants running from pillar to post in moving the authorities concerned and finally filing contempt applications before the court,” said Dillip Kumar Mohapatra, a high court lawyer.

“Increasing number of such cases results in wasting the court’s time. Consequently, new cases go without hearing for months,” said Gokulananda Patnaik, another lawyer.

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