Encouraged by the results of virtual High Courts at the district level, the Orissa High Court on Monday opened a virtual court each in 10 other districts of the State. With this, 20 of the 30 districts now have virtual High Courts functioning from each district headquarters. The remaining 10 districts would soon have this facility in place, Odisha Chief Justice S. Muralidhar said here after inaugurating the second phase of virtual courts in video conferencing mode.
The 10 districts where the virtual courts started functioning are Angul, Dhenkanal, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Keonjhar, Kendrapara, Kandhamal, Mayurbhan, Nayagarh and Sundargarh at Sundargarh HQ. Earlier in February, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud inaugurated the virtual courts of Balangir, Balasore, Bhadrak, Ganjam, Kalahandi, Khurda, Koraput, Puri, Sambalpur and Sundargarh at Rourkela HQ.
There had been a significant increase in the number of cases filed in the first phase of virtual courts, which had been in operation since February. At least 132 number of e-cases were filed over the past two months at different virtual courts across the State. During the same period at least 295 number of virtual hearings were conducted by the 10 virtual courts and at least 500 lawyers were trained for this purpose.