Office of The Advocate General, Odisha

The State Government has a dedicated panel of lawyers headed by the Advocate General to represent it in litigations before the High Court of Orissa. The office of the Advocate General came into existence with the creation of separate province of Odisha from 1st April, 1936. Justice Bira Kishore Ray, who later became the first Chief Justice of the High Court after its establishment, was the first Advocate General of the province. The province was then within the jurisdiction of High Court of Patna, with a circuit bench functioning at Cuttack. When High Court of Orissa was established, in July, 1948 Swami Bichhitrananda Das became the first Advocate General for the High Court of Orissa. The present advocate general, Ashok Kumar Parija assumed office on 26th June, 2019.

Law Officers

Government Advocate
Jyoti Prakash Patnaik

Additional Government Advocates

Standing Counsel
Tapas Kumar Praharaj

Additional Standing Counsel

Activities during the year

E-filing of cases

The digitisation of Indian courts has received a major thrust due to COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. The judiciary, led by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and the High Courts, have adopted e-filing of legal papers and conducted frequent hearings over video conferencing. The e-filing system has enabled electronic filing of all legal papers, thereby promoting paperless filing. Pandemic accelerated the digitisation of the courts in India and Orissa High Court was no exception. Hon’ble Dr. Justice S. Muralidhar assumed office as the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court in early January, 2021. He came in with a reputation of having started digitisation of the Delhi High Court and his court was known to be a ‘paperless court’, years before the pandemic.

No wonder after Justice Muralidhar assumed office, the Judges of the Orissa High Court and the Registry swung into action under his able leadership to transform the High Court from virtual courts functioning on an adhoc basis and taking up urgent cases to courts working on a virtual platform as a norm.

The Registry also transformed itself whereby the records of the High Court were digitized on a war footing. The Office of the Advocate General also rose to the occasion. Many cubicles of the AG Office were converted to facilitate virtual hearings. Infrastructure was upgraded by appointing data entry operators and procuring adequate number of computing systems for e-filing of all affidavits, petitions, appeals etc. The office of the Advocate General has also started e-filing of its legal papers such as counter affidavits, petitions, appeals etc.

The Central Project Coordinator (CPC) and the Registry conducted training programmes to train the law officers and the staff of the AG Office to familiarize them with e-filing procedures. This has gone a long way in increasing the efficiency of the AG Office.

E-Custody certificates

With the introduction of e-custody certificates module, the prison along with the details of the parties involved, the details of the concerned Superintendent of Police who is signing this document, are created. Various data/ details relating to prisoner type, name and father’s name, address, FIR, sections involved; police stations, current status with preceding court details, conviction, tenure, fine with the details of the court awarding this sentence are maintained for the use of the Court.Details relating to custody of under trial prisoners, custody period of conviction, interim bail details, parole, absconding/ overstay, actual custody and conviction; earned remission of sentence are also included in the certificate.

Trail court details, bail status, custody status in the case (whether the accused is under custody in the case or otherwise); details of conviction in other cases connected or otherwise, the details relating to acquittal are also included. There are thorough checks and balance which are maintained in generating the e-Custody certificate; making verification/corrections and after the same is completed, the said document is transferred to the High Court with facility for auto generation of draft, transfer/adjournment letter etc.

E-custody certificate system has been designed for enabling convenient access to the antecedents of prisoners and automated e-mail services for faster case information sharing with government officials. Upon implementation of this system, the e-custody certificates of the prisoners can be sent online to the courts instantly. This will go a long way in speedy disposal of the cases.

Vaccination drive in the High Court Bar & the Office of the Advocate General

With the continuous efforts of the executive body of the High Court Bar association in association with the office of Advocate General, vaccination drive for both the COVID-19 doses was undertaken, maintaining the Covid-19 guidelines like social distancing, wearing masks etc. This drive  covered  almost  all  the  members of the Bar, their family members as also the Law Officers and staff of office of the Advocate General.

Conducting RT-PCR Tests

With the spread of COVID-19 across the world, the State Government stressed the need for regular tests to combat the effect of COVID-19. In compliance with the above guidelines issued by the Central Government as also Government of Odisha, regular RTPCR test were being conducted in the Office of the Advocate General in order to detect the persons affected with COVID-19 and to isolate them so as to break the chain of spreading of the disease. Further, in the event, any staff of the Office of Advocate General tests positive, prompt steps are taken to sanitize the entire building so as to prevent any outbreak.