CUTTACK: The state government is yet to comply with an Orissa high court order to constitute a committee to suggest ways, means and modalities to check the recurrence of incidents such as the one that led to a strike by lawyers that lasted 78 days.The direction was issued on November 14. The state government was to form the committee under the chairmanship of a retired high court judge within seven days and submit a report within two months from the date of issue of the order."As no committee has been constituted till date in pursuance of the court order, we have decided to take up the compliance issue with the law secretary," high court bar association secretary Satyabrata Mohanty said on Saturday.The incident is related to the alleged assault of a high court lawyer, Debi Prasad Pattnaik, by police personnel near a fish market in Nuabazar on August 28. Following the incident, the high court lawyers had gone on strike to demand the arrest of all the police personnel involved in the fracas.Justice C R Dash had broken the impasse, while adjudicating on Patnaik's petitions seeking intervention in the case that police had registered implicating him.Justice Dash had settled the dispute by ensuring the tendering of an apology by both sides - the police personnel and the lawyer - in his court. Subsequently, the lawyers resumed court work on November 15.While quashing all cases registered by police, Justice Dash felt the need to check the recurrence of such incidents in the future and issued an interim order for the formation of the committee."Nowadays, if someone throws a stone, it may land on the head of a person who may claim himself to be an advocate, though he may not be a real advocate in the true sense of the term. Any person having a licence granted by the Bar Council is technically treated as an advocate. But, in fact, an advocate is one who has had a standing practice in litigation," Justice Dash observed."If I address the issue on my own without assistance from experts, the guidelines so framed may be a cloak for some unwanted persons to take undue benefit by diminishing the morale of the force. In view of this, I direct the appropriate government to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of a retired high court judge of the choice of the government within seven days from today," Justice Dash said in the November 14 interim order.According to the direction, the court expected the state government to form the committee with the additional chief secretary of the home department as a member secretary with nine other members; the other members being secretary of the law department, director-general of police, inspector-general of police (headquarters), police commissioner Bhubaneswar-Cuttack, president and secretary of the high court bar association and three advocates selected by the association, two of them having at least 35 to 40 years of experience. No advocate member of the proposed committee should be a member of any political party.The interim order further fixed the last week of January for listing of the matter for considering the report of the committee.

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