High Court forms panel to examine its staff appointment

CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has directed for constitution of a high-level committee to examine its requests for creation of posts of secretarial and ministerial staff by the State government. The division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice BP Routray directed that whenever the government desires to further examine a request by the High Court, the matter would be placed before a committee comprising the secretaries of Finance, Home and Law departments, and the Registrar General of High Court. The outcome of such meeting, where the issue would be discussed, will then be communicated to the Court. The order also clarified that where the government accepts the request of Court, there would be no need to activate such mechanism.

The High Court has issued the order on a suo motu PIL related to indifferent attitude and in some cases turning down the proposals/requests for appointment of staff in the High Court by the government. The Court issued the order on Wednesday after the State counsel submitted that some kind of mechanism should be put in place to facilitate a dialogue between the HC and the government to examine the requests before arriving at a final decision. The Court had suo motu registered the PIL in 2014 after it felt the government apathy towards requests of the HC for creation of posts of secretarial and ministerial staff touched upon the independence of the judiciary in Odisha.

While dealing with the requests, the government had equated the HC with its regular departments. The Court on the other hand maintained that the HC cannot be equated with other normal government offices and the stand taken by the government amounted to causing hindrance in the justice delivery system. The bench also directed the government to file an affidavit on the unresolved issues of appointment in subordinate courts against Group-C and D posts by April 6, the date fixed for next hearing on the PIL.