By Our Correspondent
CUTTACK: The High Court of Orissa has, on 9th July, 2022, organized a visit of law students from Dhenkanal to its premises. On the Children’s Day, 2021, the premises of High Court were, for the first time, opened for children. Since then students of many institutions including hearing and speech impaired and visually challenged children have visited the High Court and its allied institutions like Odisha State Legal Services Authority and Odisha Judicial Academy.
On 9th July law students from Dhenkanal Law College and their teachers visited the High Court premises at Cuttack. Lawyers Mr. Siddharth Sankar Padhy, Ms. Sagarika Samal and Mr. Jagadish Biswal were present on the occasion. They explained various aspects of judicial functioning to the students. The students saw the Chief Justice’s Courts and Chambers in the Heritage Building and the New Building of the High Court, Judges’ Library and the Conference Halls. They put queries which were answered by the lawyers. The students were shown video clips of swearing-in-ceremony of Judges and explained the procedure involved therein. Video clip of the hearing of one Public Interest Litigation was also played for viewing of the students in the Chief Justice’s court room.
The students also visited Aain Seva Bhawan which houses the Odisha State Legal Services Authority and the High Court’s Arbitration and Mediation Centers where they were given an idea about the Alternative Dispute Redressal (ADR) mechanism and its contribution in redressal of the grievances of poor litigants.
At Odisha Judicial Academy the students were given idea about various kinds of training programmes designed for the lawyers and Judges. They also interacted with Justice V. Narasingh who shared with them his experience as lawyer. Justice Narasingh advised the students to remain updated with developments in the field of law and encouraged them to be good lawyers and judges.
Though there had been visits of students from Schools including differently abled children to High Court in the past, this was the first occasion when law students visited the High Court on a holiday. The purpose of organizing such visits is to bring transparency about the real functioning of judiciary which is different from the myths prevailing in the society.
