Orissa High Court lawyers call off strike

A two and half month strike by lawyers in Odisha has been called off allowing resumption of courts proceedings.

Following an altercation between traffic policemen and one of their own, the Orissa High Court Bar Association, defying a Supreme Court direction, had been on a strike for the last 78 days. On Wednesday it finally agreed to end the embarrassing standoff between Naveen Patnaik’s government and itself.

High Court Bar Association’s president, Srikant Nayak told the media, “The constables who had misbehaved with our colleague, appeared before court and offered with their hands folded, unconditional apology, for their behaviour.” The association also expressed regret over the outburst within court premises of some of it members, he added announcing the end of the strike.


The High Court bench has reportedly decided to set up a high level committee of senior state government officials and the associations’ members to resolve any future disputes between the police and the lawyers.

The ugly standoff, spilling over to other courts in the state, had forced the HC to order camp courts on jail premises to ease the pressure of undertrials. Among them, defence analyst Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, whose social media comments on the Konark temple, has landed him in legal wrangle in the state.


With the strike on at the HC, Iyer-Mitra’s had moved the SC for bail. Listening to his petition the apex curt on 27 September had asked the striking lawyers to resume work, so that no impediment is caused in the right to access to justice of any litigant. The lawyers had reacted by locking up the main gate of the Orissa High Court in Cuttack and burning the effigy of then CJI, Dipak Misra. Ruling Biju Janata Dal attempts at breaking the lawyers, by forcing members of the BJD Legal Front to walk away, had been met with a similar outburst.