Early Times Report
Jammu, July 19 : In a PIL, seeking direction to state to appoint chairman and members of SHRC, a high court division bench of Justice B S Walia and first puisine judge Ramalingam Sudhakar today directed senior AAG to file the status of the issue, besides asking the registry to list the case on July 26 next.
The petitioner submitted that SHRC was headless since 2011 as Justice Bashir-ud-Din was its last chairman. Despite the lapse of almost five years, the respondents have not given any heed to appoint the chairman. Interestingly, the commission has become defunct with all its members having retired from their services.
The overall strength of SHRC, which looks into human rights violations in J&K, is five, including four members and the chairman.
A large numbers of cases are still pending while the new ones are being deferred till government appoints new chairman. More than one thousand cases related to rapes, cross boarder firing, land mine victims, child labour and police harassment were pending before the commission, the petitioner said.
It is pertinent to mention here that cases are not being heard by the commission nowadays. Knowing well about the problems being faced by the people of militancy hit areas, respondents had even failed in establishing sub-offices of the commission in Rajouri, Poonch, Doda and other parts of the state. (JNF) |
