Orissa High Court lawyers on Monday decided to continue their strike against the assault on their colleague by police after their talks with the top cop apparently failed to break the 76-day-old deadlock.

The high court lawyers have been on indefinite strike since August 29 following the alleged assault on advocate Debi Prasad Pattnaik by police personnel near the fish market at Nuabazar on the previous day.

Responding to an invitation from the director-general of police (DGP) R.P. Sharma, the lawyers had a round of meeting on Sunday evening.

“We decided to continue with our cease work as there was no response to the suggestion made by us during the meeting to break the impasse over our demand for arrest of the three police personnel involved in the assault,” Orissa High Court Bar Association secretary Satyabrata Mohanty said.

While giving an option for the police to wriggle out of its arrest demand, the association had expressed its readiness to call off the strike if the three erring cops tendered apology in open court during hearing on Pattnaik’s petition listed on Monday.

“Our general body will meet again on Wednesday to take a decision on future course of the strike, taking into consideration the action by then on our demand or suggestion,” Mohanty said.

Pattnaik has sought the high court’s intervention against the case registered against him and direction for expediting of action on his FIR alleging brutal assault on him. The single-judge bench of Justice C.R. Dash posted the matter to Wednesday for hearing, along with the police response.

He also sought intervention against the slow pace of action on the FIR he had filed at Chauliaganj police station for the alleged assault on him. The petition has alleged that investigation taken up on his complaint had so far been perfunctory in nature. It sought direction for expediting it and monitoring by the court.

In a related development, the division bench of Chief Justice K.S. Jhaveri and Justice K.R. Mohapatra, which has been hearing PILs seeking judicial probe into the police-lawyer brawl, posted the matter to Tuesday.

The chief justice, however, directed the police authorities to keep in abeyance the order that had revoked the suspension of the three policemen.

On August 30, the deputy commissioner of police (Cuttack) suspended havildar Prasanna Kumar Behera, constable Dillip Kumar Samal and Odisha Armed Police Force personnel Udaya Kumar Bhuyan. The suspension order was withdrawn on November 3.