Post of Chairman and members of Haryana Humans Rights Commission lying vacant as there is no leader of opposition to complete quorum for selection.
Post of Chairman and members of Haryana Humans Rights Commission lying vacant as there is no leader of opposition to complete quorum for selection.
Gustakhi Maaf Haryana-Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Will CM, Nayab Saini be able to break the traps created by bureaucracy and Congress for key post appointments?-Issue Of appointment of Chairman and members of Haryana Humans Rights Commission.
The BJP government failed to make appointments to key posts during Manohar Lal’s tenure due to the sluggish bureaucratic approach taken by the top bureaucrats of his regime (reasons best known to them). This situation continued during the Saini government.
Posts such as member of the Haryana Electricity Regulation Authority and the Haryana Human Rights Commission have been lying vacant for a long time. Surprisingly, all the posts in the Haryana Human Rights Commission are now vacant, rendering the commission completely defunct. Commission officials are informing applicants that their grievances cannot be heard due to the non-appointment of a presiding bench by the state government.
For more than a year, there has been no one to address the grievances of Haryana’s people, a serious lapse on the part of the state government. The matter is now before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in a contempt petition filed by Shiv Charan of Kaithal. In an earlier writ petition, commitments and undertakings were given by the Chief Secretary of Haryana that the commission would be made functional soon. However, the government failed to act on these commitments and undertakings. The Government had assured the High Court that appointments would be made within three weeks after the parliamentary election code of conduct was lifted. Instead, the government re-advertised all the posts of HHRC immediately after the elections in June 2024 , and after receiving fresh applications, no action was taken as top bureaucrats kept the matter in cold storage until the Vidhan Sabha elections were declared on August 16, 2024.
Shiv Charan of Kaithal filled Contempt petition in the High Court, but the Government repeated the same excuse, citing the Vidhan Sabha election code of conduct as the reason meetings for appointments could not be held. Following the High Court’s displeasure on the issue, the government made an unfruitful attempt by just issuing a notice to the Leader of Opposition (LOP) Sh Bhupinder Hooda for a meeting on HHRC appointments. However, the Congress filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India, which led to the meeting being stayed.
After the elections and the formation of the new government in October this year, the government presented another excuse: that no LOP had been nominated by the Congress Party. As a result, the meeting for HHRC appointments could not be convened.
This situation is deeply concerning. People at large are suffering on other hand dozens of retired High Court Judges, Senior legal experts and IAS & IPS retired bureaucrats are in queue since about two years but Government is not able to take decision even after advertising the posts for three times.
The roles of both major political parties are highly irresponsible—they are not serious about the basic human rights of citizens and are shifting blame onto each other. Due to these non-appointments, thousands of cases remain unattended and pending in the Haryana Human Rights Commission, where people seek justice for violations of their basic human rights. It seems that neither Congress nor BJP is interested in safeguarding the citizens’ basic rights.
Once, the president of the Haryana Congress, Mr. Uday Bhan, criticized and accused the BJP government of not filling the key posts of HHRC. However, the ball is now in Congress’s court, and the government claims appointments cannot be made because Congress has not nominated a Leader of Opposition.
As per The Protection of Human Rights Act 1993 the following is the selection Committee for a State Commission :-
(a) the Chief Minister – Chairperson
(b) Speaker of the Legislative Assembly – Member
(c) Minister in-charge of the Department of Home, in that State- Member
(d) Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly – Member
Provided further that where there is a Legislative Council in a State, the Chairman of that Council, and the Leader of the Opposition in that ‘ Council shall also be members of the Committee. Provided also that no sitting Judge of a High Court or a sitting District Judge shall be appointed except after consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court of the concerned State.
(2) No appointment of a chairperson or a member of the State Commission shall be invalid merely reason of Iang vacancy of any Member in the Committee referred to in sub-section l.
Legal experts point out that a similar situation arose earlier at the Centre when Congress had only 44 MPs in Parliament, and the Central Government delayed key appointments, including the NHRC. The matter went to the Supreme Court, which disagreed with the Central Government’s stand that in absence of LOP appointments cannot be made, the Court directed that in the absence of an LOP, the leader of the largest political party with the maximum MPs in Parliament should be included in the selection committee.
In the present circumstances, experts suggest that since Congress has failed to nominate a Leader of Opposition in Haryana, the Chief Minister, as the chairman of the selection committee, should invite the largest political party with the maximum MLAs in the Vidhan Sabha (which is Congress) to send its representative just as Congress representatives was invited to the Business Advisory Committee to discuss Vidhan Sabha matters.