No summer vacation for Odisha courts

CUTTACK: The annual summer vacation for Orissa High Court and subordinate courts in the State from May 18 to June 16 has been cancelled in view of the loss of regular working days due to the lockdown.

The Registrar General on Sunday notified that the normal working of the High Court as well as subordinate courts in the State shall remain suspended in view of the restrictions imposed by the Centre and Odisha Government due to Covid-19 pandemic and on account of the ongoing lockdown. But the courts during this interregnum would have “restricted functioning”.

According to the order issued by the registry, the High Court shall function on all five working days of the week with one division bench each on Tuesday and Thursday and five single benches on each working days of the week (except on May 22). The Judges sitting in the division bench will also hold single benches after completion of the work of the division bench. The hearings would be conducted through video conferencing.

To take up criminal and civil matters of extremely urgent nature, the subordinate courts and their offices falling in green zone shall start from usual office hours and function till the lunch break for two and half hours.

In orange zone, the subordinate courts and their offices shall function for two hours from 9 am to 11 am. Similarly, courts and their offices falling in red zone shall function for only one hour from 9 am to 10 am. Whenever an area is declared as a containment zone, the subordinate courts there are free to stop their restricted functioning, the registry specified in its order.