The office of the Advocate General wasestablished on 1st April, 1936 along withcreation of the separate province of Odisha.Justice Bira Kishore Ray, who later became thefirst Chief Justice of the High Court after itsestablishment, was the first Advocate Generalof the province. The province was then withinthe jurisdiction of High Court of Patna, witha circuit bench functioning at Cuttack. Afterestablishment of the High Court of Orissaon 26th July, 1948 Swami Bichitrananda Das became the first Advocate General. The presentAdvocate General Ashok Kumar Parija assumed office on 26th June, 2019.

After establishment of High Court, the Officeof the Advocate General started functioning within the High Court premises in the building provided for the purpose by the High Court of Odisha. In the meantime, the extension office of the Advocate General has been shifted to another building near the High Court. Besides, aseparate building for the office of the Advocate General is being constructed in front of theHigh Court. At present, only the first floor ofthe old building of the High Court has been occupied by the office.

Office of the Advocate General, Odisha is apermanent establishment, it has two wings viz. Judicial and Administrative-cum–Accounts.The Judicial Wing has been subdivided by fiveSections namely Writ, Civil, Criminal, Contemptand State Case. Each Branch has been allottedwith ministerial staff and Section Officer tosupervise the branch. The administrative wing apart from general administration of theOffice looks after maintenance of the office building, creation and appointment of staff and Law Officers and other ancillaries. The Accounts Section deals with all accounts matter,Budget estimate etc. The Confidential sectionwhich is under direct control of the Advocate General deals with all opinion files referredto by Government Departments for rendering opinion. Office of the Advocate General is well equipped with IT infrastructure to maintain Database and information of all legal cases before the Hon’ble Supreme Court and OrissaHigh Court in the greater interest of the State.

The office of the Advocate General monitorsthe Litigation Management System (LMS) of the State Government devised for easy access ofthe pleadings and orders by the Government offices for preparation of counter affidavits andreplies and for compliance of the direction ofthe High Court by judicial orders. The officewas instrumental in facilitating digitization ofthe pending case records of the High Court which has been completed in the meantime. Filing of all types of cases by the office of Advocate General is done through the e-Filing Portal of the High Court.

Advocate General heads of the panel of lawyers representing the State Government in litigations before the High Court of Orissa. The Advocate General is assisted by the Government Advocate, Standing Counsel, Additional Government Advocates and Additional StandingCounsel otherwise known as Law Officers.The appointment, conditions of service,duties, rights and liabilities of Law Officers other than Advocate General for conducting cases in the High Court of Orissa and the procedure for the conduct of Government cases are governed by the Law Officers ofthe High Court (Recruitment, Remuneration and Duties) Rules, 1974. At present there are77 Law Officers in the panel to assist the Advocate General.

• Ajodhya Ranjan Dash
• Debakanta Mohanty
• Prabhu Prasad Mohanty
• Shakti Prasad Panda
• Manoj Kumar Khuntia
• Smt. Suman Pattanayak
• Dhananjay Mund
• Satya Sundar Kanungo
• Harmohan Dhal
• Rabi Narayan Mishra

• Ch. Satyajit Mishra
• Subhashish Pattanaik
• Malay Ketan Balbantray
• Nihar Kanta Praharaj
• Rajani Bhusan Mishra
• Bijaya Kumar Ragada
• Sangram Kesari Jena
• Biplaba Mohanty

• Sailaza Nandan Das
• Tarun Patnaik
• Debendra Kumar Mohanty
• Gyana Ranjan Mohapatra
• Sachidananda Nayak
• Karunakar Gaya
• Rajesh Tripathy
• Pranaya Kumar Maharaj
• Pushparaj Bharadwaj
• Samaresh Jena
• Ishwar Mohanty
• Somak Mishra
• Baibaswata Panigrahi
• Sitikanta Mishra