Dr.Anindita Pujari, Advocate-on-Record, Supreme Court of India and the First Odia to be elected as Vice President of Bar Association of India
New Delhi (Kalinga Voice) : Dr. Anindita Pujari, Advocate-on-record (AOR), Supreme Court of India has been elected as one of the Vice-Presidents of the Bar Association of India in the election of the Governing Council held on 25th March, 2023 for a two-year term. She is the First Odia to be elected to the Post of Vice President of the prestigious Association, which is a voluntary apex organization of lawyers and Federation of Bar Associations in India which was established on 8th August, 1959 and was formally inaugurated on 2nd April 1960 by the then President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, in the august presence of the then Vice President of India Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the then Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Chief Justice of India with an objective to provide leadership to the lawyers of the Country. The Founding President of the Association was Mr. M. C. Setalvad, Former Attorney General for India. Since then, it has been providing leadership to the international bodies of lawyers from India such as IBA, LawAsia, UIA etc. besides consistently working on strengthening Rule of Law.
Prior to being elected as its Vice President, Dr. Pujari has successfully served for two terms as the General Secretary (Honorary) of the Bar Association of India. She is also the elected representative of the Supreme Court Advocate on Record Association in the Gender Sensitization and Internal Complaints Committee (GSICC) of the Supreme Court of India.
She is youngest daughter of Late Smt. Sailabala Pujari, the first women advocate of Western Odisha and Late Shree Gobardhan Pujari, a leading labour lawyer and former member of Bar Council of Odisha. She is married to Dr. Manoranjan Pattanayak, an Economist and she is the daughter-in-law of Shri Akshay Kumar Pattanayak and Smt. Binapani Pattanayak of Pandey Colony, Rourkela. She hails from Rourkela and has been representing the State of Odisha before the Supreme Court of India for more than eight years now.
Dr. Pujari has obtained a PhD in Law and Economics from JNU while working in the intersection of Law, Institutions and Economic principles. She has a LL.M from National Law School, Bangalore and LL.B from Campus Law Centre, New Delhi. In Odisha, she has studied at Govt. College, Rourkela and Udit Nagar Girls High School.
She is currently a leading constitutional lawyer in the Supreme Court and has been part of many landmark cases in the country.