Indian Express: Bangalore: Thursday,
August 11, 2016.
Karnataka
State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC), which recently faced flak from the High
Court for its inaction against police excesses during the Mahadayi agitations,
is overburdened with several pending cases and is functioning without a head,
an RTI reply reveals.
The
Commission, which remains headless for more than four years, has 13,635 pending
cases till March this year.
The RTI filed
by Onlinerti.com also revealed that there is a decline in the number of
departmental actions taken against errant officials and interim compensation
awarded to victims by KSHRC over the past few years 36 in 2007 to four in 2015.
KSHRC has
remained headless since Justice S R Nayak’s term ended on July 25, 2012. The
number of cases disposed of by the commission has also reduced from 5,760 in
2012 to 3,895 in 2015.
The
Commission looks into human rights violations including police atrocities,
custodial deaths, refusal of police to file FIR and denial of human rights of
HIV/AIDS infected people.
At present,
Meera Saxena, acting chairperson of the commission and member (judicial) C G
Hunagund hear an average of ten cases a day.
“The existing
two-member commission is overburdened and the disposal rate of cases by the
commission has also come down due to the delay in the appointment of a head. We
hope that the government will soon appoint a head to dispose cases quickly,”
said Hunagund.
Stating that
they are issuing orders based on the nature and gravity of violations, Hunagund
said, “More than 60 per cent of
complaints are against police atrocities.”
Y J Rajendra,
a human rights activist from People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a human rights
organisation, said, “The present acting chairperson is from an administrative
background and not from the judiciary,
which is a violation of the law. The government is delaying the appointment of
a qualified person as the chairperson as the ruling party does not want an
independent body which functions against human rights violations in the state.”
According to
rules, the commission should have three members comprising a retired high court
chief justice as chairperson, a retired high court judge as member and another
member with eminent body of work in the field of human rights. The members are
to be selected by a committee comprising the chief minister, home minister, the
speaker and opposition leader in the assembly.
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