Lawyers resumed their work at the high court on Thursday after abstaining for 78 days.

The advocates had started their cease work on August 29 seeking arrest of erring police personnel who had assaulted one of their colleagues. The lawyers returned to court work after the Orissa High Court Bar Association resolved on Wednesday to call off their agitation.

“We resolved to call off the cease work after the erring police personnel involved in the assault tendered apology in the court and the court expressed opinion about formation of a guideline to protect the lawyers in case of such eventualities,” association secretary Satyabrata Mohanty said.

With the decision to call off the agitation, normal function of court proceedings resumed on Thursday.

However, court proceedings were suspended at 12.25 pm after a full court reference on the demise of former chief justice of the high court S.N. Phukan and lawyer B.N. Mishra. Both had died when the court proceedings were paralysed by the agitation.

The last time the lawyers had gone for a long-drawn-out agitation was for appointment of judges. Starting on February 12, the agitation had lasted nearly three weeks with abstaining of court work followed up with relay hunger strike and stopping filing of cases. The association had then suspended the agitation and lawyers resumed court work on March 6 after erstwhile Chief Justice Vineet Saran assured to take steps by March 31 to expedite the process for filling up the vacant posts of judges.

The high court now has 13 judges. Official records indicated that the number of pending cases in the high court had gone up to 1.7 lakh.

In a related development, the Supreme Court collegium had earlier this month rejected the Orissa High Court chief justice’s recommendation for appointment of seven advocates and three judicial officers as high court judges. The collegium, however, cleared proposal of one judicial officer and deferred an advocate’s name for high court judgeship.