Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has issued new time schedules for the subordinate courts of different zones. As per direction of the HC, the subordinate courts in red zones and orange zones would function for one hour and two hours respectively. Meanwhile for the green zones the revised timing is 2.5 hours.
Source said, starting from Monday, the Orissa High Court will hear cases through single judge benches aided by video conferencing. The decision was taken in view of rising cases of novel coronavirus infections in the state. Five justices will hear various cases through video conferencing during the third phase of lockdown. For counter filing the HC will open from 10:30am to 1pm.
The Orissa High Court will function on all five days of a week with one division bench Tuesday and Thursday and five single benches on each working day of the week till May 15.
The normal functioning of the High Court and the subordinate courts in Odisha will remain suspended till May 17.
The Orissa HC in its order said that the working of subordinate courts and their offices coming under orange zone shall function for two hours from 9.00 am to 11.00 am except the courts and their offices in Berhampur, Bhubaneswar, Chhatrapur, Koraput (Sadar), Puri (Sadar), where there is no morning sitting and which will function from 11.00 am to 1.00 pm.
Judges of the sub-ordinate courts have been given the power to close the functioning of the courts if their court will come under containment zone in future.
All these above rules by Orissa HC has been effective from May 4 till May 17.
Besides, the employees of both HC and sub-ordinate courts have been instructed to maintain social distancing and other lockdown norms like wearing of masks within the court premises.
PNN
