The government may soon announce names for the posts of Chairmen for the State Human Rights Commission and State Accountability Commission.
While the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) is without a chairman for the past five months, the State Accountability Commission (SAC) is functioning with one of its members as acting chairman for over two years. Moreover the SHRC is functioning with only two members, even as the law provides for a five-member bench including the chairperson of the Commission. The posts of the members in this Commission are vacant for nearly three years.
“A serious exercise is underway and things are getting finalised at the Secretariat,” said a senior officer in the Law department. A panel of judges has been sent to the Chief Minister and Principal Secretary to the CM is likely to convene the meeting of the committee, which is authorised to recommend the final names to the Governor.
However, even as the state government has finally prepared a panel of prominent judges of the state, the committee members have not yet been informed of any date for the proposed meeting.
Sources said, even as the government has made up its mind and selected the two retired judges, the panel includes the names of Justice Bashir-u-Din, Justice Bashir Khan, Justice O P Sharma, Justice S K Bhat and Justice Muzaffar Jan who is one of the two members in the State Accountability Commission.
Though the law of the State Accountability Commission provides for appointment of either retired Chief Justice of the High Court or Supreme Court judge, the government for the sake of convenience of finding suitable persons within the state made an amendment two years ago wherein a retired judge of the High Court is the mandatory qualification for the post.
The government, it may be mentioned faced the problem of finding a suitable person for the post initially for over a year on account of the rules in the law. Facing continuous media criticism and Opposition nit-picking the government has awakened to what can be aptly termed as a toothless SHRC and SAC which have further been rendered ineffective on account of being headless for a long time.
However, in order to make it functional, the government appointed a police officer of the rank of IGP formally a few months back, who can initiate independent inquiries of the cases registered with the Commission.
As for its members, the government is aware of the vacant posts but has been deferring the matters that has certainly affected the functioning of the Commission.
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