Reeling under staff crunch and jolts from the past, the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has run into rough weather. The commission is faced against hundreds of pending cases and is somehow managing with temporary arrangements that may not suffice in the long run, officials from the SHRC said on Thursday.
“Around 1000 to 1200 cases are still pending for hearing. Most of these cases are from 2016, 2017 and 2018,” said an SHRC official requesting anonymity. He added that the human rights panel ran headless from January 2016 to October 2017, and no cases were heard during this period.
“The commission’s chairperson retired in January 2016 and the next chairperson was appointed in October 2017,” he added.
The three-member commission currently has two vacancies – one member and chairperson. Commission member SK Satpathy, who also happens to be the only member in the commission, serves as the acting chairperson, officials said.
The remaining two positions have been vacant for over a year now, which continues to be the Achilles heels for the commission.
Satpathy, who remained incommunicado on Thursday evening, could not be contacted despite several attempts.
Sanjay Kumar, the acting secretary of the SHRC, said that the number of pending cases was fast reducing in early 2018, when two benches sat every day. However, the commission’s work came to a standstill after then chairperson RR Prasad passed away in June, 2018. Satpathy was later made the acting chairperson.
“At present, the position of the chairperson and a working member are vacant. We are still trying our level best with limited resources,” said Kumar.
At least 20 cases were still heard every day, he said. The commission works five days a week.
Officials from the SHRC said that the State Home department is supposed to make appointments for the Commission, and all the appointments are made after consultation with Chief Minister Raghubar Das.
Sunil Kispotta, national secretary of All India Human Rights Association (AIHRA), said the SHRC needs immediate attention of the government as further delay in strengthening the commission would pose more challenges in future.
The chairperson, he said, has to be a person with experience in judiciary.
“The vacancies must be filled and a former judge must be appointed as the chairperson of the commission at the earliest. If the commission doesn’t function smoothly then our work also gets hindered as the cases that we take up do not get heard on time,” Kispotta said.
Both the former SHRC chairpersons –Narayan Roy and RR Prasad—were retired High Court judges.