Mrunal Manmay Dash

Sambalpur: The agitating lawyers of various Western Odisha Bar Associations will return to work in their respective courts from today effectively ending the one-and-a-half year long ‘No Court, No Hearing’ stir in the region.

As per the reports, the Central Action Committee (CAC) of all western Odisha bar associations announced its decision to end the stir for setting up of permanent bench(es) of Orissa High Court in western Odisha following a meeting held at the premises of Sambalpur Bar Association on Sunday.

Sources said, the CAC has decided to end the stir and the lawyers across the region would participate in the regular hearing of cases in the court.

However, the CAC has issued an ultimatum to the state government. It said that if the government doesn’t take any concrete step to ensure establishment of permanent bench of High Court in western Odisha before March 31, the lawyers would intensify the agitation once again.

Briefing media after the meeting, Ashok Das, the Convenor of CAC said, “We are very much into the protest. If Odisha government doesn’t submit its complete report before the Centre by 31st March, we will again go into strike.”

“I hope the committee set up to oversee the process gets out of the cold store and do its duty sincerely,’ added Das.

Notably, the western Odisha lawyers had started the ‘No Court No Hearing’ movement on 5 September 2018, through which they intended to put pressure on the Odisha government to speed up the process to establish permanent bench of High Court in western Odisha. In addition to that they have been protesting by observing three-day bandhs on last three working days of every month.

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