Rights panel remains headless

KOLKATA: Bengal gears up to observe Human Rights Day on Friday with a headless state human rights commission. Either the government is in no hurry to appoint a chairman or it hasn't found anyone worthy of the position. Whatever be the reason, the panel has been without a head ever since Justice Shyamal Sen retired in 2008. Justice N C Seal is the acting chairman now.
While the norm is to appoint a retired chief justice of a high court as chairman of the commission, the state recently re-appointed former chief secretary S N Roy and retired Justice N C Seal as members.
With the commission unable to redress complaints, some people are said to have approached the Governor for help. Recently, the Raj Bhavan asked the state government to ensure that victims of human rights violation were not denied justice. Complaints about inordinate delay in getting justice from the commission have also reached the Chief Justice of India and the President. Commission officers, though, said they were trying their best to help the victims.
There are also allegations about delay in submitting annual reports to the Assembly. However, Justice Seal said they were going to publish the annual report of the commission for 2009-10 within this financial year. "Earlier, there were five members in the commission. But following an amendment in 2006, the commission has been reduced to three members, including the chairman," Justice Seal said.
Officials at Writers' Buildings said the commission's budget was increasing by leaps and bounds, posing a problem to the cash-strapped state exchequer. "In 2007-08, the budget for the commission was Rs 1.53 crore. It increased to Rs 1.78 crore in 2008-09 and stands at Rs 3 crore for the current financial year. There are complaints of huge amounts being spent by the commission on hiring cars, paying travelling allowances and medical bills," said a government official. However, SHRC officials said they only spent according to needs. "Allowances are also paid to witnesses in cases," they added.
Leader of the Opposition and member of the panel to appoint commission members, Partha Chatterjee, said, "I did not approve re-appointment of the members and so I skipped the October meeting. The commission is totally defunct and unable to protect rights of the people. What happened to the Dinhata case where five men were killed in police firing in February 2008? Justice Seal had probed the firing but the report was not made public."