Despite the prevailing pandemic health crisis, the rate of disposal of cases in Orissa High Court and subordinate courts in the district level jumped substantially in a year’s span.

While disposal cases in the High Court rose by 72%, the increase in disposal was to the tune of 81% in the lower courts.

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The Annual Report, 2021 published after a gap of six years by the High Court pointed out substantial improvement in disposal of cases amidst pandemic.

In spite of the challenges thrown by 2nd wave of Covid-19, disposal of cases in the High Court in 2021 rose to 1,05,334 as compared to 61,335 in 2020. Similarly, the disposal of cases in district judiciary also rose to 2,28,609 as compared to 1,26,077 in 2020.

Introduction of hybrid hearing system helped the lawyers physically present and those connected through video conferencing address the court seamlessly which resulted in steep rise in disposal of cases, a statement issued by the HC said.

Meanwhile, against the sanctioned strength of 33, the working strength has risen to 21 in Orissa High Court.

60 new Courts in various districts of the State were made functional in 2021. Further, 22 Courts have been established with infrastructure for accommodation of courts and residence of Officers and are likely to be made functional this year.

The administrative and judicial sections of the High Court were earlier functioning in clogged spaces and the corridors were crammed with cupboards and shelves containing files and records. Owing to the abolition of Odisha Administrative Tribunal (OAT), the newly constructed building meant for it was suitably modified and named as Record Room Digitization Centre (RRDC) and the Record Rooms of the High Court along with the Scanning and Digitization Centre were shifted there.

Digitization of legacy records has been undertaken in RRDC on a massive scale. Apart from the Record Rooms and Digitization Centre of the High Court, it also accommodates the District Court Digitization Centre (DCDC) of Cuttack. By the end of the year, 1,56,723 case records having 37,20,724 pages were digitized.