***WHY SAMBALPUR SHOULD CERTAINLY GET THE HIGH COURT BENCH?*** (an Extract from an article written by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak) Had the High Court been having a bench at #Sambalpur, peoples might have pursued their cases through the lawyers of their locality. Cost of litigation should have drastically been less and the legal fraternity of Sambalpur side of #Odisha could have earned utmost satisfaction out of their ability to professionally help their clients up to the highest stage of jurisprudence in the State. I support the demand for a bench of Orissa #HighCourt at Sambalpur and specifically at Sambalpur for the very reason that it is the peoples of Sambalpur that had facilitated creation of Orissa High Court. It is here the peoples had revolted against disadvantage caused to them in seeking justice when Hindi was promulgated on 15.1.1895 as the court language by the then Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces to which the #British had arbitrarily annexed the Sambalpur district. The peoples’ movement for restoration of their mother tongue Oriya as the Court language so that justice shall not stay beyond their reach had made the British to review the position. In July 1901, the peoples of Sambalpur District had placed their specific demands before the new Chief commissioner Sir Andrew Fraser, wherein they had stressed that if the Government does not appreciate to restore Oriya language in the Sambalpur District under the plea that it may be inconvenient for the administration to have a particular District of the Central Provinces managed by a language different from that of the province, the Sambalpur District be immediately separated from the CP and be merged in the Oissa Division. Sir Fraser extensively traveled through out the Sambalpur District and noted the stark disadvantage the peoples were pushed into by denial of justice in their language and by keeping Courts out of their reach. He sent to the Government of India a thorough report depicting the correctness of the peoples’ demand and suggested that the Sambalpur District should be separated from CP, “if it was thought impossible to have Oriya as the language of one of the Central provinces”. Kula Gaurav Madhu Sudan Das on behalf of the Oriyas of Sambalpur moved a memorandum to the Government strengthening the same with Fraser’s findings, which the British Officer had also elaborated in his work “With the Rajas and Rayats”. Though the Government did not agree to separate Sambalpur from CP, it decided to desist from keeping the Courts beyond the peoples’ reach and restored Oriya as the Court Language. This administrative experience latter convinced the British to agree to restoration of Oriya speaking tracks to a Province and thus modern Orissa was created as the first State of India created on the basis of mother tongue. Had there been no modern Orissa, there would never have been the High Court of Orissa. To keep peoples of Sambalpur devoid of getting a bench of the Orissa High Court is not only an offense against the people of that area, but also an offense against history. The entire population of Orissa must support the Sambalpur #lawyers who are leading the most justified demand of the people who in fact had contributed their best to birth of Orissa.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 20:13:05 +0000