HRC office to be vacant without its Chairman and members

Bengaluru: The State Human Rights Commission, which was providing justice to thousands of innocent victims of atrocities, will become vacant in a few days with its Chairman's term coming to end.

The state government, which is in the middle of the next assembly elections, has not yet given any impetus to the appointment process of the members and the chairman who are already vacant in the commission and whose term will expire in a few days. Therefore, In a few days if the process for appointing members and chairman is not started, the commission will remain completely empty until the election is over.

The State Human Rights Commission had three members including the Chairman. Retired Justice KB Changappa retired on February 17. Retired IPS officer RK Dutta also retired on February 24. Later on March 10, retired Justice D H Vaghela, who is the Chairman of the Commission, will also retire. After that the entire commission will be there only for namesake.

According to the Human Rights Act, five members including the head of the commission should be appointed. Retired Chief Justices of High Courts or Supreme Court Justices as Chairman, High Court Justices, Lower Level Judges and other two members as members should be selected persons with high knowledge of human rights selection. The tenure of these members is 3 to 5 years.

Now below these members one ADGP or IGP, DySPs, Secretaries are performing duty. However, the state government has been appointing only three members including the chairman for the past few years. Appointing two judges, one a retired police officer. The remaining two members have not been appointed.

The selection committee for the members of the Commission consists of the Chief Minister, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the Chairman of the Parishad, the leaders of each party and the Home Minister. According to this committee rule, the selection process should be started 2 to 3 months before the retirement of the chairman or members of the commission. The approval of the cabinet should be obtained for the person selected by the committee. Then the Governor has to approve. However, the government and the opposition parties, which are under election pressure, have not shown any interest in this.

No investigation

Police officers cannot directly investigate complaints brought before the Commission unless otherwise instructed by the member. Also, complaints cannot be entertained. If it is accepted in public interest, investigation cannot be conducted. Hence, the Human Rights Commission will suspend its work after March 10.

More than 15,000 complaints have been received by the Human Rights Commission in 2022 including illegal detention, child labour, kidnapping, lockup death, brutality and various types of human rights violations. Over 10,000 cases have been settled in this. More than 5,000 cases are pending. Meanwhile, till the 2nd week of February 2023, at least more than 2,000 complaints have been received. Again, cases of human rights violations are going to increase during the general elections. In this case, there is concern that the commission will be vacant.