How effective is the State Government’s act of meeting major public concerns by appointing judicial and other inquiry commissionsIJ
Information through RTI sought by rights activist Tapan Padhi revealed that from 2005 to 2012 the State Government has constituted 14 different judicial and other inquiry commissions, excluding the recently-announced judicial probe by a sitting High Court judge into the chit fund scams.
While eight commissions are still continuing their probe with many extended dates, only six have submitted their reports to the Government.
For instance, as per the information provided by the Home Department in response to a RTI application filed by Tapan Padhi, the Justice CR Pal Commission of Inquiry was constituted on March 11, 2008 to study the feasibility of setting up High Court Benches in different regions of the State and was asked to submit its report within six months.
Though the commission’s functioning has been for more than five years, it has not produced a single report as yet. The Government has so far spent Rs 1.04 crore on the commission. The tenure of the commission has been extended ten times.
The commission constituted on farmers’ problems and agriculture issues on January 2, 2010 following reports a series of farmers’ suicide under chairmanship of retired bureaucrat Sudhansu Mohan Patnaik, was also given six months to give its report.
But the information supplied to RTI activist Pradip Pradhan on October 12, 2012 by the Home Department revealed that the commission had yet to submit its report. A sum of more than Rs 60 lakh had been spent towards honorarium and other allowances for the commission. After the exposure, the commission gave its report in 2013, but it has not been tabled in the State Assembly.
In yet another instance, though the report of an RDC inquiry into the Biraja temple idol theft case, in which former Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai was allegedly involved, was submitted to the Government but it is yet to be tabled in the Assembly.
“Constitution of judicial and other inquiry commissions has become a strategy of the State Government to cheat the people,” alleged Pradhan, adding that the concerned authorities still continue to deny the required information on many occasions to maintain “colonial secrecy”.